Arroyo government presents major economic goals for 2000

The Arroyo Administration presented yesterday its major goals for this year before the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

In a briefing conducted yesterday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Dante Canlas said the major goals of the new administration are: sustained growth of income, full employment, stable prices, sound balance of payments and poverty elimination and equitable income distribution.

However, Canlas admitted that the new government faces several challenges. One of these is to increase the country’s per capita income.

He cited the fact that the Philippines ranks fourth behind Singapore which has a GNP per capita in 1999 of $29,610 compared to the Philippines’s measly $1,020.

The Philippines, Canlas said is even behind Thailand which posted a GNP per capita of $1,960.

He said other major challenges are the country’s high unemployment rate which stood at 11.2 percent last year and a poverty incidence rate of 31.8 percent.

The continued volatility of the peso and a relatively high inflation rate, Canlas said, are also a challenge to the Arroyo government.

However, the new government, Canlas assured, has adopted a strategy that includes market reliance, good governance and institutional reforms, decentralization, public-private sector partnership, legal and judicial administrative reforms and the reform of the regulatory role of government.

The government, he said, is trying to achieve its goals by ensuring macroeconomic stability, long-run growth with equity and providing social safety nets and poverty alleviation programs.