They will become more able and willing to compete for new business – in effect, allowing low market interest rates to pass through to more borrowers. These developments will induce more borrowing and spending, further improving the economy, but this process will take time.
Understandably the numbers are nowhere near the ideal convergence of historic high growth and historic low inflation that we saw in 2007, nevertheless these were respectable especially when pitted against those in our region. The Philippine economy continues to be resilient. The 4.6 percent GDP growth rate for 2008 was broad-based with the major domestic sectors providing positive contributions to growth.