2002 will be tough but not insurmountable — Roxas

The year 2002 "will be tough," Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II said yesterday.

"More specifically, the first half of 2002 will be a transition period," he said. It will be "tough but not insurmountable," Roxas said, adding that the "economy will be in a defensive posture."

The DTI chief said the government is assuming a defensive posture, based on expectations that the economy is still expected to go down.

"So against the expectations that we are going to go down, the fact that we are afloat is a major accomplishment," he said.

Roxas said the economies of neighboring Asian countries like Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan are all in recession.

"The fact that the economy is afloat was due to the government’s effort of maintaining fiscal discipline, an appropriate economic policy for the 21st century, focusing on ICT and lowering the cost of doing business," he explained.

The Arroyo government, Roxas pointed out, did not spend more than it was planning to spend and collected what it was supposed to have collected.

"It (government), thus, gained credibility and led to lower interest rates, which led to stability in the peso-dollar exchange rate, which led to less interest payment, allowing more money for other purposes," Roxas said. – Marianne Go