THE Philippine economy is likely to contract by 9.9 percent this year before rebounding in 2021, a local bank executive said.

“The economy will slowly recover, such as our forecasts for Philippine economic growth is that for full year 2020, we're still expecting a negative 9.9 percent, but will improve significantly [in] 2021 and beyond,” Raul Martin Pedro, Security Bank Corp. executive vice president and treasurer, said during a forum on Thursday.