Business management expert appointed new NEDA head

Business management expert Romulo Neri took over yesterday as the new economic planning secretary and director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), replacing Dante Canlas who has submitted his irrevocable resignation to President Arroyo.

Neri, erstwhile director general of the Congressional Planning and Budget Office, is currently associate professor in business management at the Asian Institute of Management under the Eugenio Lopez Foundation.

Neri has also served as an educator in the W. SyCip Graduate School of Business. He handled courses in financial management and corporate financial management, macro-economics and environmental analysis.

He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of the Philippines in 1970, then got his master’s degree in business management from the University of California in Los Angeles,

He was also formerly corporate planing manager of Canlubang Sugar Estate, the Canlubang Pulp Manufacturing Corp. and C.J. Yulo and Sons Inc.; planning coordinator of the Luzon Stevedoring Corp., financial analyst and assistant to the president of Mobil Oil Philippines Inc. and Riverside Mills Corp., respectively.

The 52-year-old Neri joins the President’s economic team composed of Trade and Industry Secretary Mar Roxas II, Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin, Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gov. Rafael Buenaventura.

In announcing Neri’s appointment, Mrs. Arroyo said he will steer the government’s shift of economic strategy from macro-economic, demand-oriented policy pursued by Canlas to micro-economic and supply-oriented policy envisioned under a so-called "7-for-7" economic thrust of Neri.

Interviewed by The STAR, Neri said "7-for-7" refers to the target set by the Arroyo administration to achieve seven percent economic growth for the next seven years. But that would entail reducing the country’s poverty rate from the present 40 percent to 15 or 10 percent .

"We can reduce poverty by this much if we can have consistent growth of seven percent for seven continuous years, if we do these things to enhance the productivity in the supply side of our economy," Neri said.

"We want, of course, to eliminate poverty, but we have to be reasonable," he added.

Neri appeared to have impressed Mrs. Arroyo, herself an economist, when he presented his "7-for-7" economic strategy during the joint Cabinet-NEDA board meeting last Tuesday at the newly renovated social conference hall of the Department of Defense at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.

"I think it struck a chord in her previous advocacy when she got into the details of the agricultural modernization, removing the quantitative restrictions which were prone to corruption like those at the National Food Authority, to replace them with tariff," Neri said.

In his presentation at the meeting of the NEDA board chaired by the President, Neri said he tackled the basic strategies to enhance the micro-economic and supply side productivity to boost the domestic economy since the Philippine could not rely on the world economy given the global economic slowdown.

He said his goals could be achieved through such moves as intensified construction of farm-to-market roads, irrigation systems and providing lands reform farmer-beneficiaries wider access to credit and financial assistance.

Neri revealed that the Mrs. Arroyo offered him the NEDA post a day after his presentation at Camp Aguinaldo.

He said the offer was coursed through Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., who told him he should accept the job in the interest of public service.

He said Mrs. Arroyo Thursday night called him up to formally ask him to be her economic planning secretary.

"I am honored to be asked and I am happy to accept it," he said.

Neri said he believed that he was recommended to the post by the Malacañang search committee. — Marichu Villanueva