Elpidio Quirino (1948-1953) succeeded Manuel Roxas as president in April 1948 and defeated Jose Laurel to keep his post in the 1949 presidential race. It was during Quirino's term that the Minimum Wage Law was enacted and the Central Bank was established to stabilize the peso and consumer prices. The country's gross national product grew by an average of 7.7 percent annually in the early 1960s, on the back of the double-digit increase in the manufacturing sector.