Merry Christmas

The year 2023 ends with a slower consumption demand; anecdotal evidence indicates December Christmas season 2023 sales were not as good as last year’s. This raises doubts whether economic growth will be strong enough in the last quarter to pull the whole year GDP growth higher than the 5.5 percent most economists predict for 2023.

Still, the Philippines’ 5.5 percent growth will be one of the highest growth rates in ASEAN and will beat China’s best effort economic gain of 5.4 percent by a hairline.

Per the World Bank, our economic growth will be 5.8 percent in 2024.

On two unpredictable fronts, the Philippines is looking good in its outlook for 2024 – inflation and global wars.

Global inflation was stoked mainly by the Russia-Ukraine war that crimped supplies of food and energy.

In October 2023, the International Monetary Fund projected global growth to drop to 3.0 percent this year from 3.5 percent in 2022, and further to 2.9 percent in 2024, thanks to a marked slowdown in the growth rates of the rich countries, from 2.6 percent in 2022 to just 1.5 percent in 2023.

Philippine inflation has been stubborn, hitting 5.82 percent in 2022 and about 6 percent in 2023. But it will be declining to the 2-4 percent target of the central bank over the next four years.

Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas are the global wars of the 21st century. Both wars could end in a state of suspenseful uncertainty leading to a strategic stalemate.

Both Ukraine and Russia will claim to have won.

Ukraine’s much vaunted five-month summer counteroffensive has failed.

Ukraine has lost considerable population, considerable firearms, considerable backing from the West, defending a 1,000-km frontline, far longer than our 600-km Pan-Philippine Highway from Ilocos to Bicol.

Ukraine asked Western Europe for $54 billion in additional assistance. Denied. It asked for additional $60 billion from President Biden. Denied by the US Congress. Ukraine has used up 90 percent of its drone and munitions and replenishment, if any, has been slow in coming.

The West claims Russia has sustained over 315,000 casualties – killed and wounded, 87.5 percent of the 360,000 troops deployed when Moscow invaded Ukraine in