The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
A “strong Philippine economic growth” is expected in the coming years as a result of the country’s joining the $1-trillion Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure plan, seven independent analysts said during the May 25 Pandesal Forum.
President Duterte and 29 other global heads of state met at the recent May 15 to 16 Beijing Belt and Road Forum.
The analysts urged continued socio-economic reforms and trading more with all the world’s major powers China, USA, Russia and Japan to ensure that the country becomes globally-competitive similar to the country’s Asean neighbors.
The initiative of Chinese President Xi Jinping also assures the country will benefit from globalization trends.
The economists and geopolitics analysts also warned of “various disinformation efforts” seeking to sabotage these infrastructure plans, such as by Anders Corr who recently wrongly claimed through media that “high-interest loans would balloon Philippine debt to unsupportable levels”.
Corrs claimed an unheard of annual interest rates of 10 percent to make the wild claim the Philippines’ new debt would soar to $452 billion and bring debt-to-GDP ratio to 197 percent or second-to-worst in the world.
The analysts debunked this black propaganda and innuendos by citing Indonesia’s on-going construction for its $5.29 billion Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project backed by China’s $3.96 billion loan at two percent to 3.4 percent annual interest rate.
The analysts who supported the Philippines’ “progressive, economics-driven and pragmatic independent foreign policy of befriending and economically engaging more with all the world’s powers China, Russia, USA and Japan” were Phil-BRICS Institute founder Herman Tiu Laurel, economist & former Undersecretary Butch Valdes, Catholic University of Louvain-trained geopolitics analyst Professor Celso Cainglet, Wharton-educated businessman and Integrated Development Studies Institute (IDSI) think tank founder George Siy, former Philippine diplomat Ado Paglinawan and columnist Rod Kapunan.
Economics and politics analyst Wilson Lee Flores was moderator of the non-partisan and issues-focused Pandesal Forum of the 78-year-old Kamuning Bakery and Café in Quezon City.