Other Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, may edge out the Philippines in terms of tourist arrivals, if the Duterte administration would not be able to improve the country’s infrastructure, the Department of Finance (DOF) warned on Thursday.
Unless the government closes the country’s infrastructure gap and matches the infrastructure networks of other Asean member-states, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Philippines will never become an investment-driven economy that can achieve true economic inclusion for its people.
“Weak infrastructure is the main reason our tourism sector lags way behind powerhouses such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. At the rate they are investing in their tourism infrastructure, Vietnam and Cambodia could overtake us soon in tourist arrivals. That will be a sorely missed opportunity,” Dominguez said.
Vietnam’s foreign tourist arrivals reached 10 million last year, Cambodia attracted 5.01 million international tourists, while the Philippines was visited by only 576,638 foreign tourists.
According to Dominguez, the Dutertenomics is anchored on an “unprecedented” infrastructure buildup that will let the Philippines finally catch up with its neighbors in Southeast Asia, which is moving closer to a single economic community under a highly competitive global market.
But an inclusive growth strategy, like the “build, build, build” agenda, requires an expansionary fiscal posture, so there is more of a need for the DOF to push in the Congress the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program. Dominguez said this will guarantee a robust revenue stream for the planned massive infrastructure investments under the Duterte administration.
“The call of this time is to build, build and build. We have some catching up to do. As we move closer to an Asean economic community, we must match the infrastructure of our neighbors. We cannot hope to be an investment-driven economy unless we invest in improving our infrastructure,” he added.
The build, build, build agenda was presented to the public recently through the Dutertenomics forum organized by Malacañang, the DOF and the Center for Strategy, Enterprise and Intelligence this month.
“If we do not move quickly today, we could wind up as the country with the worst infrastructure backbone among the Asean countries. That will be truly ironic. We are an archipelagic economy. If we do not build up our infrastructure backbone, inequalities between regions will deepen. Island economies will remain cut off from the national economic mainstream. Poverty will remain widespread,” he said.
Dominguez added currently Vietnam has doubled its per-capita steel consumption compared to the Philippines, which underscores Manila’s record of underinvestment in infrastructure.