“The disaster will probably tip the gauge slightly downward for this quarter but will push it up by a bigger scale later as the government pumps in more funds to fix broken bridges, roads and other infrastructure,” Chen said by telephone on Friday, after the Executive Yuan announced it would draft a special budget of around NT$110 billion to fund the reconstruction work.
If a special statute for this level of extra funds is approved by the Legislature on Thursday, Chen said the reconstruction work would be a benefit to the economy as it helps raise demand for construction materials and create more job opportunities, while Olsen said the reconstruction projects would push investments higher in the fourth quarter and into next year.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) is due to release its second-quarter GDP figure and forecasts for the following two quarters and the whole year on Thursday.
Economists had previously predicted the DGBAS would adjust its GDP data upward next week in the wake of faster-than-expected economic improvements in the April-June period.
Now, Chen said the DGBAS might have to consider the negative impact of the typhoon, although he did not provide a specific forecast. On May 20, the DGBAS predicted the economy would decline 2.98 percent in the July-September quarter from a year ago, before seeing a 5.2-percent recovery in the fourth quarter.
Nevertheless, Chen said the GDP figure is not a perfect indicator of the quality of people’s life.
“It does not factor in property losses or people killed by the disaster,” he said.
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