While the IMF has cut its global economic growth forecast in its April 2022 World Economic Outlook, it raised its GDP growth projection for the Philippines from 6.3 percent to 6.5 percent this year. On COVID-19, the Philippines is managing risks of potentially new variants emerging through sentinel surveillance and protecting the vulnerable population through accelerated vaccination.
As of May 17, 68.8 million out of the target 90 million Filipinos have already been fully vaccinated. On the Ukraine-Russia conflict, there’s an impact to domestic prices, but we expect inflation to remain manageable. Based on the most recent BSP forecasts, inflation this year could average 4.6 percent.