MANIL A - Despite the billions worth of damage wrought by back-to-back typhoons, the Philippines is keeping its economic growth target of 0.8 to 1.8% this year, a top government official said on Friday.

"We will maintain our present growth rate," Socio-economic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos told reporters.

Santos noted that their projection would be supported by the continued surge in remittances from Filipinos working abroad and the likelihood that both private and public sectors will spend more following massive destruction caused by the typhoons.

Over the past month, twin storms "Ondoy" (Ketsana) and "Pepeng" (Parma) pounded main Luzon with record rains, claiming nearly a thousand lives, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, and causing at least P22.83 billion in damage to agriculture and infrastructure.

The government said its assessment on damage was conservative and did not include the homes and businesses that were devastated.

Earlier, Santos said "Ondoy" and "Pepeng" could shave off 0.22% and 0.11% from the country's full-year growth, respectively.

Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, for his part, said total damage from the two storms could trim growth to 0.4% to 1.4% from 0.8 to 1.8%, and bloat the budget deficit to P300 billion from the P250 billion ceiling.

However, the economic managers maintained that the economy could still get a boost from overseas remittances.

Remittances grew 2.8% to $1.369 billion in August, bringing total money inflows from abroad to $11.342 billion for the first 8 months of the year.

Accounting for about 10% of domestic output, remittances drive consumption, which in turn, fuels the engine of the economy usually more than government spending does.

The central bank is now expecting remittances to rise by 4% to $17.1 billion this year as the global economy starts to recover. - abs-cbnNEWS.com, with a report from Reuters