pessimistic is the imf [ international monetary fund ] at 5. 0 percent. our own forecasts [ at the central bank ] are quite consistent with [ finance ] sec. ben's. we, [ the economy ], should be between 6. 0 percent and 7. 0 percent this year. the point is, the economy - even after adjusting for inflation, after removing the effects of inflation on values - we are actually seeing the economy grow by 7. 6 percent last year to 6. 0 percent this year. the importance of targeted assistance and non - monetary measures to support the hardest hit so, the real problem is how to assist the most vulnerable. of course, from a political standpoint, how to address the needs of the middle class because they are the most articulate among all the other voters. we support all the measures that the government is doing. my own reading is, please correct me if i am wrong, is that the imports are finally coming in. that is the case with sugar. but i do agree with congressman [ stella ] quimbo that imports are important short - term measures because, clearly, we cannot increase [ agricultural ] production quickly in three months. agriculture takes a long time. so, imports are necessary, but they will not totally defuse the price increases. in the case of pork, because of swine flu, people actually prefer fresh pork to frozen pork. so, similarly, the imports are, in many cases, not available very, very quickly in places that are far away from manila. one of the other reasons why inflation was higher than expected was because the economy was stronger than expected. in other words, demand was actually strong. you 3 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches can see in the chart, year - on - year spending in hotels and restaurants was almost 25 percent higher. that is some form of revenge spending [ as ] people have not gone out and eaten [ since the pandemic ]. you can see how crowded the restaurants are. vehicle sales are up [ by ] 31 percent. fortunately, there is some recovery in international tourism. it is still way below what it used to be. finally, you can see unemployment, by historical standards, is quite low. in short, the economy can take the policy rate increases. the real issue is how one can have targeted assistance to the most vulnerable. taking a long - term view on development external [ credit rating ] analysts, for instance, [

to increase if they are already high. historically, the " knock - on " effects are controlled within three or four months. threats to preserving price stability however, what is evolving is our own [ inflation ] forecast. [ it ] is that maybe, this time, we will have 19 or 20 consecutive months where inflation will be above 4. 0 percent, [ the 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches upper band of the target range ]. this [ current ] inflation is a lot more serious than what we have experienced since the bangko sentral ng pilipinas ( bsp ) became an inflationtargeting central bank. [ what used to be ] 15 straight months [ of ] above - target [ inflation ] will now be 19, 20 straight months above target. but still, it is important to point out that, of course, even when you take out the outliers - and we call that core inflation - inflation is still 7. 4 percent. as i said, our forecast is that inflation will be above target for 19 to 20 months, which means inflation will be below 4. 0 percent, maybe, by november or december at the earliest. since inflation now is above 8. 0 percent, and you have slightly below 4. 0 percent by the end [ of the year ], the average [ full - year ] inflation, of course, will be more than 6. 0 percent if you average the 8. 0 percent with the 4. 0 percent. that is why our forecast inflation - the average of the year - on - year figures - will be 6. 1 percent. moreover, our view is that the risk we will revise the forecast upwards is higher than the risk we will revise it downwards. that is the situation. the private sector has also revised its [ inflation ] forecast. their forecast for the year is about 6. 0 percent - but, i suppose, now that we are [ the central bank ] revising it upwards, i suppose, they will revise theirs as well. what is worrisome is, although our forecast for 2024 is closer to 3. 0 percent than to 4. 0 percent, the private sector forecast is 4. 0 percent. we call this the " disanchoring of inflationary expectations. " people expect higher prices. therefore, they raise prices. therefore, we had little choice but to act aggressively. we have raised policy rates from 200 basis points ( bps ), when [