Global competitiveness Phl eyes top third ranking by 2016

CEBU, Philippines - Although the country has to exert more effort particularly in terms of job generation, labor productivity and infrastructure, the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) remains bullish that the Philippines could further improve and achieve its goal to be on the top third ranking in the list of economies by 2016.

This year, Philippines moved up five places from the 43rd rank in 2012 to 38th out of 60 economies in the recent IMD World Competitiveness Report.

It also posted the largest gain among five economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ranked 11th in Asia Pacific from its 13th place in 2011 and 2012, outperforming Indonesia and India.

There are a total of 60 economies around the world that were reviewed for the 2013 World Competitiveness Report that primarily focuses on four major factors including economic efficiency, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure.

The country registered levels of improvement in the economic performance from 42nd to 31st, government efficiency from 32nd to 31st and business efficiency from 26th to 19th.

On the contrary, infrastructure which concerns investors apart from business regulations, is the only factor where the Philippines registered a drop in ranking in the last year from 55th in 2012 to 57th in 2013.

NCC, however, lamented on the early data collection period for the IMD report that resulted to the failure of accounting the fails improvements in public infrastructure spending and rollouts in the country.

“In contrast to the IMD report, the first quarter 2013 economic report reflects 7.8% GDP growth with government spending up 13.2% and overall construction up 33.7%. Increased infrastructure rollouts and improved efficiency in the PPP rollouts are expected to improve performance in infrastructure,” it stated.

In an interview with The FREEMAN, NCC private sector co-chairman Guillermo Luz said that in the next IMD report, there will be improvement on the ranking of the Philippines in the infrastructure aspect.

He further commended the efforts of the Department of Public Works and Highways for laying out and accomplishing road projects in the country.

NCC also cited in its latest statement that gains in business efficiency were not accompanied by job generation.

“The Philippines is actually down seven places in employment at the 29th rank and is 59th in the level of overall productivity (down one) and labor productivity (down two). There may be high productivity but still, there is low employment rate. We need to create more jobs. We are positive that this could be worked on in the coming years,” Luz said.

He noted that the shift of the country on the agriculture sector as the biggest job generator for Filipinos is laudable and should be sustained, backed up with the stable labor demand from other sectors such as the construction, services, tourism and business process outsourcing industries. 

“Compared last year, we can say that there is already a balance for all sectors this 2013,” he added.

In terms government efficiency, on the other hand, increases in fiscal policy for two jumps at the 9th rank and institutional framework with three places up at 33rd, were counteracted by drops in public finance that is six places down at 38th and business legislation at 51st that is two places lower from last year.

It was also reported in the 2012-2013 Ease of Doing Business Report of the International Finance Corporation and World Bank that the Philippines ranked low in global rankings on starting a business and paying taxes.

At present, the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook listed the country at the 57th place in number of days to start a business and 59th in number of procedures.

Despite such, NCC remains optimistic that these areas will improve with the recent efforts to facilitate the ease of doing business in the country particularly with the creation of a task force between both the public and private sectors that intends to promote streamlining, transparency, and efficiency in business practices. /JOB (FREEMAN)