Asian Financial Crisis

The Philippines hasn’t survived unscathed because it is well integrated into the rest of the region in terms of its trade flows. But the big plus has been that a lot of exports go to the US, and of course, the US has maintained good growth. This is good news. It means that the Philippines hasn’t had to rely on exports within the region, it can rely on US and European demand for its products. Its export growth has remained at 15-20% so its trade account has not been too disastrous.

However, the big problem for the Philippines is that it has a large amount of foreign debt compared to its gross domestic product and the size of its wealth. It’s not a very big country in terms of GDP, but it has big foreign debt from the past. Its currency has also slid with the rest of Asia’s currencies so the debt servicing bill is building up. Read the rest of this entry »

Philippine President Fidel Ramos on Saturday signed a 495.7 billion peso ($12.4 billion) national budget for this year, vetoing several appropriations introduced by the Congress.

`I realise the efforts that Congress had put to improve our proposal for 1998’s budget. However, I too have a responsibility… to ensure efficiency management and implementation of our programmes,” Ramos said before congressional leaders. Read the rest of this entry »