 |
Amando M Tetangco Jr: confident in Philippine resilience |
This Asian crisis might not be as bad as the last one. For Amando M Tetangco Jr, governor of the central bank of the Philippines, the lessons learnt from the crisis of 1997 and the reforms that followed it mean that the outlook for 2009 is not nearly as gloomy as might be expected. Euromoney speaks to him about the challenges facing the banking sector, forecasts for growth and inflation, and lessons learnt from the 1997 crisis.
The economy, while definitely affected by the challenges facing global markets, has proven to be quite resilient and has done better in relative terms than many other emerging markets. For example, we saw a respectable growth rate for the first three quarters of 2008 of 4.6%. The banking system has also been resilient, for a couple of reasons.
First, over the last few years we’ve implemented economic, fiscal and financial reforms to strengthen the economy.