Exit plan
Posted on September 10th, 2009It’s definitely too early to put in place an exit plan from the government’s crisis response policies. The world economic recovery remains sluggish and the growth of Philippine economy remains weak. Thus, pulling the plug on the accommodative monetary policies and the fiscal stimulus program could yet tip back into near recession. Yet, it’s the best time for any presidential candidate for the 2010 elections to think of an exit plan that he would put in place if and when he gets elected.
I doubt, however, whether any of the presidential candidates would talk candidly about his exit plan during the political campaign. Realistically, any exit plan will require a lot of pain and as such may not appeal to many voters. Nevertheless, he should be ready with one, and should be ready to work for public support for it when the time is right.
Rudiments of the exit plan
The exit plan will have to deal with the following problems: limited fiscal space, rising unemployment, weak social protection program, structural changes in Philippine exports, and risk of peso appreciation.
First is the limited fiscal space. The next president will inherit a huge national public debt (around P4.5 trillion), a low tax-to-GDP ratio (about 11% to 12%) and rising expectation for more government spending for education, health care, and social welfare. His first order of business is to fix the shaky fiscal house. He has to reform the tax system aggressively. The legislation should be done quickly, preferably within the first 100 days, but the implementation should be calibrated.
Second is the high and rising joblessness. Even before the global economic crisis, the Philippine jobs market was already in a critical state. One out of five Filipino workers are either unemployed or underemployed, according to official statistics. The recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey results showed that some 10 million Filipino workers are unemployed.
But this problem will not go away soon. Analysts see a jobless economic recovery. In the order of things, the jobs market will be the last to recover. After the financial market mends, the real market would follow, and only then will the jobs market recover.
The third aspect of the exit plan is the weak social protection program. This is one of the things that emerged from the current crisis. Rising unemployment leads to instant poverty and consequently hunger incidence. A worker who has lost his job — or can’t find employment — is immediately challenged with feeding himself; or if he is a family man, he faces the added task of feeding, educating, and providing health care to his children.
On the spending side, there will be pressure on the next president to provide greater coverage for the conditional cash transfer program and universal health care.
The fourth aspect of the exit plan is what to do with the severely weakened manufacturing sector, which in the past has been a major source of output and employment. The next president has to immediately identify the new sources of growth. Manufactured exports are likely to be not one of them.
The heavy reliance of Philippine exports on electronics and machinery parts has become a major source of despair and uncertainty. Global trade may not be back to its pre-crisis level anytime soon. With the demand for electronics products sputtering and the shift to smaller, more fuel-efficient, potentially electric-powered cars gaining momentum, there may be less demand for the type of export products that Philippine factories produce. The brutal question then is whether the slowdown in Philippine exports transitory or permanent? And certainly, it does not help that many export-oriented firms — from Intel to Goodyear — have actually closed shop during the crisis.
Risk of peso appreciation
The risk of a peso appreciation is perhaps the trickiest aspect of the exit plan. Analysts see the massive flow of “hot money” into emerging economies like the Philippines. Given the massive liquidity introduced in the US and other developed economies, and given the still weak real economy, then many analysts see that a big chunk of the liquidity would show up in the equity markets of emerging economies. This explains the brisk and higher activity in the Philippine stock market. One wonders if the stock market is in for a correction soon.
The risk of a peso appreciation flows from the long-term sustainability of the US economy. For long-term sustainability, the US has to solve its twin (trade and budget) deficit problem. The US has to export more and import less. One way of achieving this is for the US dollar to weaken; by implication, for the peso to appreciate.
But what happens when the peso appreciates sharply to, say, P40 to US$1? It would spell disaster to the already troubled Philippine exporters. But it would be equally devastating to the families of some 9 million overseas Filipino workers. With the peso value of remittances shrinking, personal consumption spending would contract too. A combination of slower exports and shrinking consumer spending could tip the economy back into a severe economic slowdown.
In order to avoid a sharp appreciation of the peso, monetary authorities have to be bolder. They have to use part of the gross international reserves for servicing our foreign debt. We don’t have to borrow money from commercial sources, at relatively high rates, while BSP is sitting on $40-billion international reserves. BSP should also consider some form of foreign exchange control on portfolio investments. By its nature, “hot money” has a way of exacerbating a problem — it exits quickly when it smells trouble.
Source: Benjamin E. Diokno