Business groups expect government to address stringent economic rules, infrastructure program
While proposals for easing economic restrictions and the ambitious infrastructure program are seen as positive stimuli by local business chambers, Philippine businesses are expecting concrete steps from the government to address pressing problems that have hounded the Aquino administration.
Two Philippine business organizations have assessed the new administration’s economic proposals in the past six months as “welcome changes,” but insist on a sharper focus on these amid the continued campaign against drugs.
“On the lifting of economic restrictions imposed by the Constitution, we have to get the ball rolling and welcome the recently signed executive order to create a consultative body that will review the Constitution,” said Perry Pe, president of the Management Association of the Philippines.
Former President Benigno S. Aquino III came under fire for refusing to support the resolution of both houses of Congress.
The major amendment sought by the business groups is the insertion of the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” in certain economic provisions in the Constitution related to foreign ownership of land and businesses.
The House of Representatives did not act on the resolution.
This stands in sharp contrast with the vocal intent of President Duterte to ease restrictions on ownership by foreign businessmen of certain assets.
The Department of Finance’s comprehensive tax-reform package should, likewise, be pursued by the present Congress, Pe added.
The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) is taking a more cautious approach in assessing the administration’s economic direction in the past six months.
“There hasn’t been too much accomplishment since the administration has been concentrated on the drug issues in the first six months. What has helped the economic outlook has been the President’s traveling to Japan and Singapore to drum up more investments and more trade relationship with Asia and Asean,” George T. Barcelon, president of PCCI, said in a telephone interview.
Duterte and his economic team have been making the rounds in Asia since September, embarking on state visits to neighboring Asian countries while shunning the Philippines’s oldest Western ally, the United States.
The most telling of this Asian pivot is the massive Philippine delegation, composed of government and private-sector members, to China, where Chinese counterparts also gathered in record numbers to meet with Filipino businessmen. That visit yielded $25 billion in combined credit facilities and investment pledges.
The pivot is further underlined by the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) pursuit of the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (Rcep) free-trade agreement, which focuses on members of the Asean and their bilateral trading partners.
The top 2 trading partners of the Philippines, Japan and the US, are not in the Rcep and, instead, are members of the Rcep’s counterbalance trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
On domestic matters, the President’s state visits, Barcelon said, should also boost the government’s “Golden Age of Infrastructure” program, or the “Build, Build, Build” proposal that aims to spend P8 trillion in infrastructure over the next five-and-a-half years.
“We’re very confident—especially on the infrastructure spending—that will differentiate the kind of environment we’ll have next year,” Pe said.
“In 2017 our economic activities will be determined by this push in infrastructure. The seaports, airports, roads, isama mo na iyong power—kung wala iyan, hirap tayo mag push up ng ibang economic activities,” Barcelon said.
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