Operator: Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Safe Bulkers Conference Call to discuss the Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results. Today, we have with us Mr.
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With esteemed financial practitioners and good friends, BDO Capital President Ed Francisco and ING Bank President Hans Sicat, I was recently asked to be a panelist in a
Philippine Daily Inquirer 35
th Anniversary forum. That question, the title of this piece, was posed by our moderator, Business Editor Tina Arceo-Dumlao.
Save for minor variations, we gave similar answers which I paraphrase thus: “Yes, we will see some bounce back, but largely due to base effects from the depressingly low level this year, and we won’t be seeing the Philippine economy back to 2019 levels until 2022 at the earliest. The recovery shape won’t be a V, may not even be a Nike swoosh or a U, but more like a ‘dirty L’ (Han’s depiction) with features of a K, uneven across industries, firms, and the populace.”