Bigger budget eyed for export development

Reviving the battle cry "export or die," House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. has pledged to work in the bicameral committee finalizing next year’s budget to increase the meager allocation for export development and promotions.

The Speaker made the pledge in response to statements made by Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Manuel Roxas II and export leader Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis Jr. during the opening of the Exporters’ Bazaar at the ground floor of the Batasan Complex in Quezon City to jumpstart the celebration of Exporters’ Week in the first week of December.

The pledge to boost efforts to revive exports came on the heels of a continuing monthly decline in the sale of Philippine goods abroad expected to go negative for the first time in more than 10 years this year.

The speaker acknowledged that the budget for export development and promotions tacked into the DTI’s proposed budget for 2002 of a little over P500 million is only loose change.

Stressing that point, Philippine Exporters Confederation (Philexport) president Sergio Ortiz-Luis told the speaker that the rule of thumb in government is for agencies to spend P9 out of every P10 of their budgets on personal and administrative services.

In the case of export promotions, the allocation for trade missions, participation in international and national trade fairs and in market research and intelligence will only be about P50 million next year, he said.

"That is the equivalent amount needed to build a small town market or a few hundred meters of concrete road," Ortiz-Luis compared. "That is the yearly allocation in support of a segment of the economy that produces P1.5 trillion worth of goods and services a year, or practically one half of the economy."

The export sector has been pining over the fact that its share in government allocation has started to suffer since the latter went into deficit spending during the past administration.

Faced with this reality, Ortiz-Luis intimated to Philexport News and Features that export leaders are taking a second hard look at the practices in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand of assessing a levy on exports that serves as the private sector’s counterpart contribution to a more aggressive export program. – Abe P. Belena, Philexport News & Features