Diokno: Build, Build, Build to benefit from US-China trade war if ...

The looming trade war between the world’s top economies may be beneficial to the Philippines if it leads to cheaper prices of steel and cement, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said Tuesday.

“At the macro level, really, it’s bad for the world economy. But if the trade war results in lower prices of steel, lower prices of cement, because there’s a war going on, that’s beneficial to us because of the Build, Build, Build,” he said in an in a televised interview.

The United States and China, the two biggest economies of the world, imposed duties worth $34 billion on each others’ goods last Friday.

Diokno said, however, that the country needs to focus on the goings-on in the Philippines instead of overseas concerns.

“We really have to do our homework here. We should not bother so much about what's going on there ... I think we should focus on that,” he said, referring to the infrastructure program.

Under the Build, Build, Build program, the government plans to spend over P8 trillion until 2022, largely funded tax revenue.

The Bureau of Treasury (BTr) said the government is increasing its borrowings by 20 percent to P1.19 trillion in 2019, from this year's P986 billion. —Jon Viktor Cabuenas/ VDS, GMA News