PHILIPPINES MACRO UPDATE: ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE TYPHOON / OCT 28 2009- 2 -
Reconstruction Adds to Growth in 2010
While the natural disaster will weigh on GDP growth in Q4 2009, post-disaster reconstruction will add to growthin 2010. Strong remittance inflows are expected to aid the reconstruction effort, in addition to the PHP12bn inrelief funds approved by the Congress and more than $100mn in aid pledged by international donors. Toestimate the contribution to growth, we constructed a simple time series model using quarterly GDP datastarting in 2000. This allows us to quantify the impact of past reconstruction efforts on GDP growth, whichprovides a reasonable estimate for the potential growth contribution in 2010. The details appear in the Annex.Base on our estimates, GDP growth is likely to be raised by around ½ ppt in 2010.
Estimated GDP Impact of Past Reconstructions
Period Reconstruction after GDP contribution (%y/y)
2002 Utor, Lingling (2001) 0.42004 Imbudo (2003) 0.62007 Xangsane, Durian (2006) 0.5
Average 0.5
Source: ANZ Economics.
Inflation Impact Transitory
We expect the effects of price shocks to be transitory. The impact on food prices will be the highest in the firstmonth after the typhoons (i.e. October), but will diminish rapidly.Using the six most severe typhoons during 1998 to 2006 as a guide, the food price shock is expected to befairly significant in October. Food prices could rise by around 0.7% m/m, boosting headline CPI by around0.3ppt. The bulk of the price increases is likely to be concentrated in rice and perishable food products, whichaccount for 9.4% and 5.3% of the CPI basket, respectively. According to the Department of Agriculture, therice sector suffered the largest damage of around PHP5.2bn, with an estimated 301,580 tons of paddy ricedestroyed and 183,106 hectares of paddy fields submerged. While the release of rice stockpiles has easedupward pressure on rice prices, temporary transport and distribution bottlenecks will likely lift prices of perishables such as fruits and vegetables. Non-food components appear to have been unaffected by pasttyphoons, and we expect a similar outcome this time round as manufacturing activity in the flood-hit areas aremostly small and medium-sized businesses.
Post-Typhoon Food Price Trends
Typhoon MonthFoodinflation(m/m)Change fromtrend foodinflationNon-foodinflation(m/m)Change fromtrend non-food inflationXangsane Nov 2000
1.4% 1.1% 1.1% -0.1%
Utor Jul 2001
0.8% 0.1% 0.5% -0.7%
Lingling Dec 2001
0.5% 0.4% 0.2% -0.3%
Imbudo Aug 2003
0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.2%
Nanmadol Dec 2004
1.0% 1.0% 0.5% -0.9%
Xangsane Oct 2006
0.5% 0.7% -0.2% -0.1%
Durian Nov 2006
0.2% 0.4% 0.1% 0.1%
Average 0.7% 0.5% 0.3% -0.3%
Source: CEIC.
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