Pangandaman urges gov’t agencies to utilize infra budget

DBM PRESS RELEASE

Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman called on departments and agencies to fully utilize their infrastructure budgets, true to the government’s commitment to maintaining momentum in infrastructure development.

“I urge all NGAs with infra projects to aim for 100 percent budget utilization so that we will sooner see the fruits of our Build Better More Infrastructure Program while we continue to hit our GDP targets," Secretary Pangandaman said.

The Budget Chief expressed confidence that the government’s infrastructure spending will boost the country’s GDP growth in the third quarter of 2024.

Infrastructure spending reached Php 720.5 billion at the end of June 2024, expanding by 18.4 percent compared to the same period last year. This is equivalent to 5.7 percent of GDP and well within the 5.0 to 6.0 percent target of the National Government under the Medium-Term Fiscal Framework.

This robust spending performance also exceeded the government's target of Php 671.3 billion for the first semester, owing mainly to the rapid implementation of public construction projects such as road networks and rail transport and capital outlay projects on defense modernization. This also significantly contributed to total government disbursements which increased by 14.6 percent to Php 2.764 trillion.

Secretary Pangandaman recently highlighted that government disbursements, specifically the Government Final Consumption Expenditure, were one of the significant contributors to the higher 6.3 percent GDP growth for the second quarter.

Notably, the strong performance of government-led construction projects contributed about 2.0 percentage points to the 6.3 percent real GDP growth for the second quarter, a significant rebound from its 0.8 percent performance recorded last year.

For the next semester, infrastructure spending is expected to continue driving higher government disbursements and, ultimately, contribute to faster GDP growth, reaching 6.0 to 7.0 percent in 2024 and further increasing to 6.5 to 7.5 percent in 2025.

For 2025, the Build Better More Program will receive an allocation of Php 1.507 trillion or 5.2 percent of GDP.