Hopeful

It is an unprecedented number.

SWS conducted a survey in the second week of this month asking respondents whether they were hopeful or fearful for the next year. A record 96 percent said they were hopeful rather than fearful.

I am not sure about the wisdom of presenting respondents with a binary choice between hope and fear. But this is a recurring survey with the same question. The uptick in hopefulness must be celebrated.

There are enough reasons to be fearful, of course.

The year we are about to close has been warped by war. The specter of inflation continues to haunt. There are signs some of the major economies will fall into recession. Tensions in the South China Sea will likely continue to spiral in the coming period.

Our domestic economy is far from spectacular – although we posted remarkably low poverty and unemployment numbers this year. We will probably grow at a little over 5 percent even as our economic planners have set “fighting targets” as high as 7 percent.

Nevertheless, we will lead the Southeast Asian region in growth. Our neighbors are feeling the pressure of the global economic slowdown more than us. This is likely because they are more trade-driven than us.

The longer-term future is not promising. We lag behind our neighbors in investment flows. Our agriculture is stagnant and inflation will continue to be driven by rising food prices. But our balance of payments picture is solid – because of stronger remittance flows from our migrant workers. Domestic consumption remains strong, inflation notwithstanding.

The high interest rate regime, imposed to curb inflation, chokes business activity. It slows down growth, even as it does not solve the cost issues that fuel price increases.

We are looking to the new economic czar to help clear the bottlenecks to investment and correct the many policy flaws that hamper our development. It still remains, however, that we are spending drastically less than our neighbors in improving our human capital. It is time to look beyond our reliance on exporting low-grade labor and feeding our young to the digital sweatshops that call centers actually are.

Then again, there are enough reasons to be hopeful.

We have