He attributed the slow implementation of basic infrastructure to the changing plans and programs whenever there is a change of leaders. Many of the strategic projects the NCC has lined up for immediate implementation have been implemented in earnest this year.
Among them is the completion of the north and south expressway linkages up to Batangas, including the extension of the north superhighway to La Union. -- Abe P. Belena, PHILEXPORT News and Features <--back
2. Business leader urges gov’t to adopt a strong population control program
An influential business leader has urged the government to adopt an aggressive population control program so that resources and efforts at developing the domestic economy will have a higher impact.
The call was made by Ambassador Donald Dee, Special Envoy for Trade Negotiations and chairman emeritus of the influential Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI).
Ambassador Dee made the call on the sideline of the presentation of the World Competitiveness Report that rated the Philippines at the tail-end of Asian countries in the ranking.
Limited resources are dissipated to short-term welfare programs at the expense of more lasting projects that should solve poverty because population growth outpaces economic growth, Dee declared.
“I am not saying that we should adopt what another country did, that of passing a law limiting one child for each family. What we must adopt is a program that limits the unchecked growth of our population,” Dee stressed.
Dee, in his declaration, has invited the ire of the catholic church which has been opposing every effort of government to come out with a more practical population growth control program that uses artificial birth control methods.
The church has vehemently opposed any legislative or executive initiative to institutionalize population control.
Because of the perceived strong influence of the Catholic Church, the Arroyo government has only paid lip service to such a program. -- Abe P. Belena, PHILEXPORT News and Features <--back
3. RP strong in business management, tops in women decision-makers
The Philippines is number one in the world in involving women in decision-making, both in the government and the private sector.
If it is of any consolation, this is one of the silver linings in the over-all ranking of the Philippines in the yearly world competitiveness report.
Ma. Lourdes Sereno, executive director of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) policy center, told a media briefing that it is in the field of involving female executives in running government and businesses that the Philippines made it to number one in the 2009 competitiveness report.
Another field where the Philippines still is in the rank of the most competitive economies is in business management.
Sereno said that businesses in the Philippines belong to the better managed enterprises in the world. This indicates that given a better policy climate, the country has more than better chance of improving its ranking in the future.
This was bolstered by the report by a recent Forbes magazine report which ranked the best companies in the world and including some Philippine enterprises in the ranks of the top 100 companies worldwide. -- Abe P. Belena, PHILEXPORT News and Features <--back
4. Indonesia first to recover in Southeast Asia
Among the 15-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia is gearing to be the first to recover from the lingering global economic slowdown.
This was made clear as it recently reported its latest growth performance. In the last three months of last year when most other ASEAN countries got a battering when the global economic tsunami hit, Indonesia registered a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5.2 percent, the highest in east Asia except China.
And in the first three months of this year when the most advanced ASEAN members reported below zero growth, the biggest member in terms of population reported its economy grew by 4.3 percent.
Analysts say that Indonesia has proven in the past six months that it is the most resilient economy in the region simply because its economy is less dependent on exports that other members.
Vietnam also demonstrated similar resiliency by posting a 3.1 percent growth from January to March, while the Philippines was seen to have inched up between 2.1 and 3.1 percent during the same period.
The three middle-class ASEAN members did better under the current export slowdown compared to newly developed Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. -- PHILEXPORT Cebu, PHILEXPORT News and Features <--back
5. NCC to aggressively push development of 8 sunrise industries
The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) will aggressively push the development of eight sunrise industries as one way to harness the country’s competitive advantages and propel economic growth.
Ambassador Cesar Bautista, NCC co-chairman for the private sector, bared this following the release of Switzerland-based Institute for Management Development of the 2009 World Competitiveness Yearbook showing the Philippine ranking slipped by three notches to 43rd from last year’s 40th out of 57 surveyed economies.
The country scored high in the area of business and government efficiencies, then economic performance but scored the lowest in infrastructure.
Bautista identified these eight industries as tourism, agri-business, business process outsourcing, mining, electronics, supply chain logistics, automotive manufacture, and health, wellness and retirement.
The NCC is coming out with a tourism industry cluster comprising of Bohol Province, Leyte, Camarines Sur, Puerto Princesa, Tagaytay, Misamis Occidental and Sorsogon Province.
“In tourism, we are just scratching the surface. We can do much better than these countries. If LGUs (local government units) assert this, I think, we can go further,” he said.
“We would like them to be the one to start the economic growth – bottoms-up (approach) because that’s how you can grow the economy,” he added.
The council initially identified Cavite, Laguna, Urdaneta, San Fernando (Pampanga), Iloilo, Dumaguete, Davao, Baguio, Malabon and Bacolod as key drivers of the BPO industry clusters.
Likewise, Bautista said the country should provide more logistics infrastructure which are crucial in bringing down especially the cost of exportable products.
He also underscored the need to exploit huge opportunities offered by the $10-billion health, wellness and retirement market.
The ambassador noted that the projected recovery from the global financial crisis augurs well for the electronics sector.
“There are other value-added electronics (products) that we are not producing, like communications (devices). After this crisis, that will recover,” he said.
Bautista noted that developing these sunrise industries could help develop the domestic economy rather than just relying on exports and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) sectors in spurring economic growth.
Apart from this effort, Bautista bared that the Council is continuously pursuing programs expected to improve the country’s competitiveness.
These are developing competitive human resources, instituting efficient public and private sector management, creating effective access to financing, improving transaction cost and flows, providing seamless infrastructure network, developing energy cost competitiveness and self-sufficiency and addressing special concerns in the legislature, Ombudsman, and the judiciary.
The IMD survey indicated that the United States topped overall competitiveness ranking, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and Denmark.
The Philippines, however, ranked high in terms of resilience against the global financial crisis.
It placed 32nd out of 57 nations in the Stress Test Competitiveness ranking which focuses on exposure, readiness and resilience in a period of world recession. The country’s position was just close to the 28th ranking of the US. -- Danielle Venz, PHILEXPORT News and Features <--back
6. GFIs offer collateral-free loans to MSMEs
Government financial institutions are urging local business owners to avail of their various lending programs that require no collateral.
In a roundtable discussion among the business support organizations (BSOs) and GFIs, Jane Tambanillo, executive vice president of Philippine Export-Import Credit Agency’s (PhilEXIM) Business Development Group 2, particularly cited their wholesale and direct lending programs.
Tambanillo explained that under the wholesale lending program, the BSOs could serve as conduit in providing loan assistance to their members.
Under this arrangement, she explains that BSOs are responsible for administering and monitoring of loan availments and repayments of their members. These are also the ones which evaluate their credit worthiness.
“You can borrow from PhilEXIM through a credit line for your group. We lend up to P25 million and later on, if you require more on a case-to-case basis, you can increase it depending on your performance on your original P25 million,” she added.
Tambanillo clarified that such program no longer requires guarantee nor a Joint and Several Signatures (JSS) agreement or suretyship.
But a deed of undertaking from the officers of the associations is needed, she said.
Tambanillo said both direct and indirect exporters are eligible to access such loan program.
Apart from this lending program, she said PhilEXIM is also offering the SME Unified Lending Opportunities for the National Growth (SULONG) which does not decline a loan only on the basis of inadequate collateral.
For her part, Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) Sr. Asst. Vice President Dulce Rañoza said businesses can access low-cost borrowing despite the absence of acceptable collateral through the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ Credit Surety Fund (CSF).
Rañoza said local government units, financial institutions, cooperatives, the International Loan Guarantee Fund (IGLF) manage the surety fund that will be deposited entrust to a financial institution like the DBP.
“The borrowers who are members of the cooperatives can apply for loans from financing institutions or any bank provided the cooperative will endorse the borrower or the member to the oversight committee usually in these financial institutions. In case of default that the cooperative member cannot pay the loan, the surety fund will cover the payment for the loan,” she explained.
The Credit Surety Fund operates at the provincial level and has been launched in Cavite, Aurora and Bohol. The BSP will next introduce the fund in Davao and eventually in some key areas in the Visayas and Mindanao.
The Small Business Guarantee Corporation (SBCorp) is also offering its MSME Wholesale Lending Program which provides funding to participating financial institutions (PFIs) nationwide for lending to MSMEs.
Collateral per se is not a determinant in approving or denying a loan. The SBCorp has made its collateral policy flexible for MSMEs.
Likewise, the Land Bank of the Philippines earlier informed the exporters about the availability of its P1-billion lending facility through the Development Advocacy (DevAd) Program.
Under the DevAd program, businesses can qualify for loans even without collateral as long they have “viable projects and confirmed market.” -- Danielle Venz, PHILEXPORT News and Features <--back
7. Investors encouraged to put money into N. Mindanao’s agribusiness
Northern Mindanao has assured prospective agribusiness investors of the availability and reliability of infrastructure crucial to supporting their planned businesses.
This assurance was made by the Regional Development Council (RDC) chair Gov. Jurdin Jesus Romualdo during the recent annual International Food Exhibition (IFEX) agribusiness investment and marketing forum. Region 10 took the spotlight as the partner region for this year’s event.
“We have the basic and major infrastructures to support our economy and business needs,” he said.
“These infrastructures will be our major support to various initiatives to promote production, increase trading, marketing and logistical requirements and better movement of goods and services,” he added.
Romualdo related that the government has fast-tracked construction of farm-to-market roads, small irrigation facilities, ports and airports, bridges, power and energy facilities and agri-support structures in the region.
He noted that the presence of giant telecommunications firms in the area makes business transactions faster and easier.
“Office and residential space is steadily rising and is expected to rise up in the coming years,” he stressed.
Romualdo said Northern Mindanao hosts the largest industrial estate of the country with a good and very deep harbor that can accommodate large ocean-going vessels.
He said the Mindanao Container Terminal is located within the estate, linking the region to Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) and the rest of its foreign trading partners.
Romualdo also assured would-be investors of different investment incentives and technical support to address their needs. He noted agribusiness remains a major strategic business industry, considering that agriculture comprises 30 percent of the region’s economic growth and employs 45 percent of its total employment population.
Region 10’s top export commodities are agri-based, namely: oleochemicals, canned pineapples, crude coconut oil, abaca pulp, cochin coco oil and desiccated coconut.
“Yet, there are many opportunities for expansion like the promotion of high-value crops, marine resources and its allied products,” he noted.
For his part, Engr. Roger Navarro, president of Chamber of Agriculture Fisheries and Food Industries in Northern Mindanao, identified 18 investment areas in the region.
These are banana processing, feedmill (pineapple meal, corn), aquamarine processing facilities, poultry and livestock, packaging and logistics, agri-renewable energy and Halal meat processing/slaughterhouse.
Others include pineapple, rice and corn, vegetable, seaweed, mariculture, black tiger prawn, pangasius, tilapia and bangus, sunflower, cassava and malunggay production. -- Danielle Venz, PHILEXPORT News and Features <--back |
