How to improve the economy’s ‘seven big winners’

Posted at 2:37 pm April 13, 2010

Tags: Agribusiness, Outsourcing, Tourism

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By Alexander Villafania

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MAKATI CITY, METRO MANILA – Several foreign chambers of commerce have identified seven “high-growth” industries and made recommendations how the goverment and private companies can work together to develop each sector.

The Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines recommendation is part of the group’s 2009 plans to identify seven domestic sectors where the Philippine government and private institutions can work together.

The group is composed of chambers of commerce from the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea and the Philippines.

These chambers initially identified several domestic sectors they consider as high growth areas. These are agribusiness, business process outsourcing, manufacturing and logistics, mining, tourism, creative industries, and infrastructure. Collectively, they are called “Seven Big Winners.”

Julian Payne, Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines president, said they have organized several focus group discussions related to these domestic industries since last meeting in June 2009.

Payne said the focus groups were attended by over 300 experts from the government and private sectors and contributed greatly to the recommendations, which he said are comprehensive and could greatly help push the country’s economic growth.

Some of the examples of the recommendations are as follows:

Agribusiness — Linking small crop farmers to domestic and global markets and large corporate integrators for the agribusiness sector. Improved infrastructure, lower transport cost, less government red tape.
BPO – Information drive to widen public understanding of industry’s present and potential contribution to the economy. Raise quality and quantity of labor supply avaialble to the industyr.
Creative – Improve planning with Philippine Creative Industries Master pLan. Pass legislation to create Creative Industries Development Council. Human resource development, rebrand Philippine creative image, protect intellectual property, organzie awards, exhibits and lectures.
Infrastructure – Prioritize investments in airport terminals, runway and communication facilities. Each region should have one international airport or convert existing local airports. Reduce cost of airfare to promote international tourism.
Manufacturing and Logistics – Develop an industrial master plan, identify opportunity sectors for exports of goods and services to global markets. Reduce utility costs, reduce red tape, and establish an export development fund.
Mining – Exploration and permits should be granted transparently at regional level within six weeks and renewed in one day at one-stop-shops. Encourage downstream processing/manufacturing. Work with indigenous people and develop mining HR skills.
Tourism – Improve international connectivity by eliminating common carrier tax. Develop and implement national destination master plans. Reduce cost of doing business and mobility for travel and tourism enterprises.

The recommendations by the Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines also follows an Asian Institute of Management report Executive Director Federico Macaras, which stressed that the country lagged in attracting foreign direct investments (FDI) against its Southeast Asian neighbors.

A Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas report showed that FDIs to the Philippines only amounted to US$1.4 billion as of November 2009. In comparison, other countries have more than double in FDIs in 2008. China’s FDI in 2008 was US$147 billion.

Macaranas stressed that the current problem of corruption as well as other social problems have contributed to the negative reception about the Philippines. “We should act soon on changing our reputation and implementing these plans if we are to get more FDIs,” he said.

One comment to “How to improve the economy’s ‘seven big winners’”

Bernice32Byers on May 19th, 2010 at 10:42 am

I guess that to get the loans from banks you ought to present a great reason. But, once I’ve received a secured loan, because I wanted to buy a bike.

How to improve the economy’s ‘seven big winners’

One comment to “How to improve the economy’s ‘seven big winners’”

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