This is the fifth consecutive year that the country has been able to keep inflation within the Government’s target inflation range. Moreover, the Philippines has substantial cushions to ride out potential turbulence in the global financial markets:   Our gross international reserves reached $ billion as of end-December 2013.
Let me now turn on the euro area. In its latest projections, released in early September, the ECB revised GDP growth estimates to 0.9 per cent in 2023, from 3.1 per cent in 2022; with a month of additional data, the IMF has revised them down to 0.5 per cent, signalling a substantial halt.