Government turns focus to improving competitiveness

MANILA, Philippines – The government had started addressing issues that pulled down the Philippines’ competitiveness, vowing to reverse the first drop in the ranking in six years.

“The new government has given top priority to sharpening the Philippines’ global competitiveness, precisely to improve the ease of doing business here and turn our country into a magnet for investments on the Duterte watch,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said in a statement yesterday.

Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran agreed, saying the 10-point socioeconomic agenda fits into investor concerns that figured in the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report.

The Philippines slipped 10 notches to 57th place in the survey conducted from February to June or during the Aquino administration.

It followed five straight years of climb from 85th place in 2010.

“The Duterte administration aims to reverse the decline in the Philippines’ WEF competitiveness rating that happened in the final year of the Aquino presidency...,” Beltran said in the same statement.

Beltran laid out plans to increase infrastructure spending to five percent of economic output to fix what WEF said was “inadequate supply” of hard capital.

Tax rates and regulators, also complained by investors, will also be addressed once the five packages comprising comprehensive tax reform program is passed.

The first of the package lowering personal income taxes and removing value-added tax exemptions is already in Congress for scrutiny. A second one lowering corporate levies will be passed soon.

As for public corruption, Dominguez cited President Duterte’s EO 2 that acted as a freedom of information measure in the Executive branch. “(This is to) keep government officials on their toes,” Dominguez said.

For bureaucratic red tape, the finance chief pointed to Beltran, who he named as anti-red tape czar at the Department of Finance (DOF).

“The very first directive by the President in his State-of-the-Nation Address last July was for all government agencies to cut red tape as a way to speed up the processing of permits and other official documents in the bureaucracy,” DOF said.

“Delays...have been a perennial complaint of individuals and businesses in previous administrations,” it added.