Palace satisfied with Forbes listing

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang is “satisfied for the time being” with the country’s placing 87th among 141 countries in Forbes’ Best Countries for Business List.

“But, moving forward, we hope to see the improvement in the ranking,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte however said yesterday.

Based on the list, the Philippines is a better place for business than China and India which ranked 96th and 97th, respectively. The list however showed the Philippines still lagging behind its Southeast Asian neighbors like Singapore, which was fourth and Malaysia, 31st.

“It’s good that we’ve managed to maintain the ranking. I looked at the ranking from 2010, 2011, and at least this year’s ranking. We are also looking at the individual indicators because I understand there are 11,” Valte said.

“We’ve managed to gain a good bit of ground in some of the indicators,” she stressed, noting that Philippines still managed to “maintain” its ranking “considering that there are now more countries that are being considered for the Forbes list.”

She said it’s encouraging that the country has earned high marks for monetary freedom and innovation as well as for protecting investors in general.

“That is one of the things that concern the President when it comes to doing business in the Philippines. We’ve always said that the President has always been pushing that we level the playing field,” Valte said.

“So it’s a very good indication that our ranking went up specifically when it comes to investor protection,” she said.  

The Forbes’ list ranks countries based on different factors including trade freedom, monetary freedom, property rights, innovation, technology, corruption, and market performance

The Philippines got the same ranking last year during which 130 countries were in the list.

The country’s ranking in five of 11 factors considered in the report has dropped.

The country’s position dropped 21 places to 110th in terms of tax burden and by seven places to 86th in terms of trade freedom.

In the issue of red tape, the country’s ranking fell five places to 128th. In terms of corruption, the country’s ranking slipped to 112th.