By Catherine N. Pillas
The next administration should have a clear economic blueprint that will allow the Philippines to attract more foreign direct investments (FDI) and grow faster, the Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC) said.
While foreign businessmen cited the Aquino administration for making substantial progress in implementing reforms, JFC said there should be no letup in the government’s efforts to sustain the country’s growth momentum.
“Looking at the last five or six years, the government understood the idea of having integrity and good governance. Have we achieved everything that we wanted to achieve? Maybe not, but we’re now looking at a generational perspective,” European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines External Vice President Henry J. Schumacher said.
Schumacher added that a “stable and open” business environment will make it easier for the Philippines to attract $10 billion to $12 billion in FDI and grow by 10 percent annually. Members of the JFC will discuss the government’s progress in implementing reforms during its Fifth Arangkada Forum scheduled on March 1.
Based on the Fourth Anniversary Assessment Report of the JFC published last year, the number of measures where substantial progress has been made have been increasing since 2011, when the first Arangkada Philippines document was published.
The original Arangkada Philippines 2010 : A Business Perspective document has been the basis of the foreign groups’ monitoring of the government’s progress on key economic areas.
Every year academics, business executives and former government officials assess the government’s performance in terms of Arangkada Philippines’s 471 recommendations.
JFC’s recommendations covered the business environment, select economic sectors, competitiveness and general economic factors. From 2011-2014, recommendations where substantial progress has been noted grew from 36 out of the total of 471 recommendations, to 117.
The number of active recommendations, or those that have at least been initiated by the government starting 2011, has grown from 232 to 331 in 2014.
Those that are dormant, or have been given a rating by experts as regressing or no longer relevant, have decreased from 219 recommendations in 2011 to 115 in 2014. Arangkada Philippines’s targets $75 billion in FDI and the creation of 10 million jobs from 2010 to 2020. From 2011 to 2015, FDI attracted by the Philippines have reached $20 billion.