Agence France-Presse
The Philippines will likely avoid a recession this year due to remittances, strong consumption, low inflation and interest rates and high liquidity, business analysts said Tuesday.
Speaking at a forum at the Philippine Stock Exchange, they said the economy likely grew in the second quarter and the momentum is expected to be sustained for the whole of 2009.
"The performance of the stock market mirrored the performance of the economy," said stock exchange president Francis Lim, citing the composite index which has risen 26.2 percent since the start of the year.
Eduardo Francisco, president of BDO Capital and Investment Corp., said there was about P1.2 trillion ($24.8 billion) of liquidity in the system.
"My clients are seeing growth... they are just looking for avenues to invest," he told reporters.
The optimistic forecasts were in contrast to those of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which have forecast a contraction of 0.5 to 1.0 percent respectively for the Philippines this year.
They cited the gross domestic product growth of only 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2009 as evidence of a slowing economy.
Jaime Ysmael, chief finance officer of property giant Ayala Land Inc. said the country's property sector was up 31 percent.
He attributed this to continued positive GDP growth despite the global turmoil, large remittances from the millions of Filipinos working overseas, inflation falling to 22-year lows and the reduction in interest rates.
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