DTI keen on upgrade in Manufacturing Resurgence Program targets

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is looking to upgrade the targets under the Manufacturing Resurgence Program due to the continued growth of local industries and acceleration of the economy.

DTI Assistant Secretary Rafaelita Aldaba said the agency would likely set “more ambitious” goals for the updated program set to be released by the first quarter of next year.

Among those which will be reviewed are the manufacturing growth targets, the sector’s projected share in the gross domestic product (GDP), and manufacturing’s potential job generation.

The existing Manufacturing Resurgence Program targets to increase the contribution of the sector to 30 percent of GDP by 2020 and also raise to 15 percent its share in total employment.

For the growth of the manufacturing sector, Aldaba said it could be raised to as much as 10 percent.

“We have very rosy prospects (for manufacturing growth) because we already achieved that (10 percent growth) in the more recent years so I don’t see any reason why we cannot achieve that in this administration,” Aldaba said.

“So we will review all of these together with the updating of our individual roadmaps. We will come up with new goals and our target for this is by first quarter next year,” she added.

The DTI on Monday unveiled a new industrial strategy that aims to create globally competitive, value adding, innovative, and inclusive industries.

The new strategy’s top five industry priorities include manufacturing, agribusiness, information technology-business process management, tourism, and infrastructure and logistics.

The agency said while the services industry served as the main driver of the country’s growth in past decades, the manufacturing industry has been playing an important role and has been contributing substantially to economic growth since 2013.

In the third quarter of 2016, manufacturing grew 6.9 percent, up one percentage point from 5.8 percent posted in the same period last year.