Concepcion counters downtrends, stays optimistic on economy

MANILA, Philippines — Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion remains optimistic about the country’s economy despite a slight reduction in business confidence and growth forecasts.

“I am very optimistic that this Christmas will be a very good one,” he told reporters at the Pandesal Forum moderated by Wilson Lee Flores. “Inflation has gone down – maybe not to the level of a couple of years back – but it is moving down… A lot of MSMEs have recovered and are now cash-flow positive.”

Concepcion’s statement is in reaction to several reports that point to a downtrend in the economy. A recent survey released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed business confidence fell 40.8 percent to 35.8 percent in the third quarter. The BSP, however, attributed the decline in sales and demand for goods and services to weather-related disruptions and other seasonal factors, higher prices of raw materials and production costs, elevated inflation and interest rates, and peso depreciation.

Also, the growth outlook for the Philippines this year by both the Asian Development Bank and S&P Global Ratings has been adjusted to slightly lower than the government’s six to seven percent target.

“In business, we don’t look at these things too close, you have to look at it at the end of the year to really see how things are,” he said. “We should not look at one number and be discouraged.”

He reiterated this statement in another interview. “Inflation is caused by external factors and hopefully these things will turn around,” he told host Dante Ang II on his show Business and Politics.

Economists have attributed the rise in oil prices to the decision by oil-producing countries, more recently by Russia, to reduce supply in order to manage their own domestic