“The President approved it [PEDP] with very minor revisions,” said Secretary Ramon Carandang of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office.

The Export Development Council (EDC) presented the 2011-12 PEDP to the President and the economic managers on Monday, and all its recommendations secured Mr. Aquino’s approval, Carandang said.

For the near term, the recommended executive policy action of the EDC is for the President, as EDC chairman, to preside over quarterly EDC meetings and to “champion exports in official international trips.”

Carandang said in its presentation, the EDC said that the President “as export champion” can “leverage the popular mandate of the President to get things done.”

He explained that as export champion, the President will “do more to promote the export industries” in his foreign trips.

Carandang said the President is already promoting Philippine exports when he goes abroad, but now “this will be in a more structured way.”

In the PEDP, the EDC recommended the amendment of the Export Development Act and the speedy passage of the customs modernization and tariff bill.

It recommended an institutionalized funding source for export development and promotion to finance integrated promotional exports, provide assistance to small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in finished goods marketing and continuous training for workers in the export industry.

The EDC also recommended to “build” on its strengths by revitalizing networking communities, linking with other business councils to strengthen and unify advocacies, and to strengthen the EDC secretariat.

The market strategies in the PEDP include maximizing benefits of free-trade agreements, targeting high-growth emerging markets and attracting the migration of supply chain nodes to the Philippines.

The strategy for promotions are to undertake focused promotions with emphasis on quality over quantity, to launch more high-impact and high-level in-bound fairs and missions linked with tourism opportunities, and to embark on a comprehensive and unified country branding.

Carandang said that the nine key sectors that the government is developing under the PEDP are information technology and business-process outsourcing (BPO) and other services, electronics, agribusiness, minerals, shipbuilding, motor vehicle parts, garments and textiles, homestyle, and wearables.

“The idea here is you pick the winners; industries that have shown or are showing great potential for export growth and to help get them there.... These are the industries where we think we are going to see the best growth,” he said,

He said job generation was among the factors considered in coming up with the list.

Carandang said the government is projecting “an annual growth of 10 percent in exports between now and 2016.”

He said the government’s challenge in the BPO sector is to “go up the value chain.”

“We want people who are doing accounting services, computer programming, medical-legal transcription...rather than people who just answer irate phone calls. We’re trying to move them higher up the value chain,” he said.

In terms of agricultural exports, he said, “There’s a trend now toward green products and we believe this is a natural fit to help grow agriculture exports.”

He noted that the natural and organic-food export market is more than $1 trillion.

“That’s the size of the market. We feel that there’s a chance for us to go there. We’re still big producers of coconut, for example, and there’s a lot of potential for coconut products,” Carandang said.

He said that during its presentation to the President, the EDC presented the concerns of exporters, among them, the need to harmonize local, national and international trade policies to support exports.

Exporters also seek the alignment of policies, promotional initiatives and market intelligence consistent with export strategies among government agencies, such as the departments of Agriculture, Trade and Industry, Foreign Affairs, and Tourism, among organizations within the agency.

Exporters are pushing for reduced business costs through the simplified approval of permits and improved infrastructure; a “more meaningful access to credit,” retooling the labor force “through education and skills training compatible with business needs to increase their productivity,” and access to raw materials, updated technology and innovation.

Carandang said the sector is also seeking “foreign-exchange policies supportive of exports.”

“They wanted a more aggressive [government] position on the peso. What we told them is that we can’t really go against the market and that what the government can do really is just to temper the volatility,” he said.

Exporters also want labor laws to be liberalized to improve productivity and competitiveness, their involvement in international trade negotiations, and to “maximize benefits from trade agreements through knowledge and implementation services.”

Carandang said what exporters consider as a “mission critical” concern is the “persistent corruption in some national government agencies and local government units,” which, he said, is “already being addressed,” and cited the Department of Public Works and Highways, where a review of questionable contracts is expected to save the government as much as P7 billion this year.

Exporters also cited “the need for funding support for export promotions and other export development initiatives, especially for SMEs,” he said.