Sunday, July 30, 2023

Macroecon 22, Econ performance of Marcos Jr administration in year one

Last Friday July 28 I was one of four speakers in a forum reviewing the promises and implementation under the Marcos Jr. administration. Below are some of my slides.





 


Among the Qs during the open forum were (a) what's new in SONA 2023 that were not present in SONA 2022, (b) if directions and targets are clear and not ambiguous. I answered in (a) the Maharlika Fund and MUP pension reform. A number of big infra projects were killed by politics, like BNPP and Tampakan gold-copper mining, $5.9 B, the single biggest FDI in the country killed by politics, the provincial govt. An investment entity with political presence/signature can send signal to political harassment by LGUs, national agencies, that they should step back. Also SWF from other countries would consider putting their money here since their counterpart is putting money on certain sectors with big potential returns.

The MUP pension reform, current set up is anomalous, MUP people contribute zero to their pension then receive huge pension, tax free, corrupt set up. They should contribute, for their own good in the long term. 

The medium term fiscal outlook are spelled out, explicitly and categorically, like budget deficit from 6% of GDP to 3% by 2028; public debt down from 60% to around 40% by 2028, these are non-ambiguous targets.
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See also:
Macroecon 20, Strong US dollar and how to deal with it, October 06, 2022 
Macroecon 21, Presentation on inflation, gloal and national pictures, November 01, 2022
Macroecon 21, Tax revenues, PH outstanding debt, February 17, 2023.

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