PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told top business executives in Cambodia that the Philippines’ better-than-expected economic growth in the third quarter indicates that the Philippine economy is “poised for growth.”

“The Philippine economy, we are happy to say, is poised for growth. As I came into office, the economic team that we put together, my instructions to them was that first all is that we have to find jobs,” Marcos said during a roundtable with top executives based in Cambodia on Thursday, November 10.

He added: “And since after the pandemic, the rate of job – the rate of unemployment rose steeply and it was the one thing that had to be prioritized; one of the things that had to be prioritized.”

The event happened ahead of the 10 am scheduled announcement of the Philippine Statistics Authority in Manila. While the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) provided the media a transcript of Marcos’ speech at the event hours after the closed-door meeting, it broke protocol when it beat the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to announcing the latest economic data.

In a tweet posted at 7:43 am in Cambodia (8:43 am in Manila), the OPS said that Marcos told business leaders in Phnom Penh that the Philippine economy grew by 7.6% in the third quarter of 2022.

The PSA, as scheduled, announced the latest economic data at 10 am. The agency is almost always on schedule in reporting economic data, giving financial markets plenty of room to anticipate the impact of data on trades and business deals.

Economists expected a slowdown of around 6.1%, but household consumption surprisingly drove growth amid skyrocketing inflation.

Economic expansion in the third quarter puts the Philippines second in growth in Southeast Asia, behind Vietnam’s 13.7% and in front of Indonesia’s 5.7%.

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‘Encouraging signs’

Speaking before the business executives during the early morning meeting, Marcos said that while inflation “continues to be a concern,” other figures are more encouraging – including the country’s unemployment rate (at 5% as of September 2022, from 8.9% the same period in 2021).

“And so it looks like the route that we have taken is taking the economy in the right direction. And as I was telling some of the Cabinet members, I think the Philippine economy, the important elements are in place, and you can feel that our economy is trying to grow but is really being pummeled by the forces outside of which we have no control,” said Marcos.

The Philippine president is in Cambodia for the 40th and 41st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits in Phnom Penh.

“I do not talk about recovery of the economy, I talk about transformation of the economy because the new economy is going to be different from everything that we did in 2019,” he told the business executives.

Among the business leaders who joined the breakfast meeting were WorldBridge Group chairman Sear Rithy, Mong Reththy Group chairman Mong Reththy, Cambodia Chamber of Commerce and Cambodia Rice Federation board member Hun Lak, Khmer Enterprise CEO Vanmunin Chhieng, ACLEDA Bank director Van Soi Ieng, WorldBridge Group vice president Allen Dodgson Tan, Bluebell Cambodia managing director Pierre Balsan, Chip Mong Land CEO Henry Leang, and Pathmazing CEO Steven Path. The list of businessmen was released by the OPS.

Marcos invited the business executives to visit and, ultimately, invest in the Philippines.

In all of his travels abroad so far as head of state, Marcos has made it a point to emphasize how his administration has tweaked Philippine regulations when it comes to public-private and government-government partnerships. Thus far, he has traveled to Indonesia, Singapore, and the United States for state visits and am official visit. Marcos also flew to Singapore to watch the Grand Prix.

Marcos’ trip comes as the global economy grapples with rising prices and borrowing costs, effectively dampening investor confidence. It also comes at a time when Marcos pivots to public-private partnerships to finance ambitious, big ticket projects, as his predecessor, former president Rodrigo Duterte, brought the national debt to over P13 trillion. – Rappler.com