GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES to promote fair business competition and upgrade infrastructure will address concerns raised by businessmen during a conference this week, Cabinet officials yesterday said.
The 37th Philippine Business Conference (PBC), which ends today, has identified agendas for 14 sectors and three priority areas that will improve the country’s competitiveness. Conference resolutions were presented to President Benigno S. C. Aquino III last night by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, host of the annual gathering.
The PBC resolutions outlined legislation, projects, and courses of action for agricultural development; education and skills development; energy and power reforms; environment; good governance; housing and construction; industry; intellectual property; mining; public-private partnerships, micro, small, and medium enterprise development; taxation; trade; and transport and logistics.
The recommendations were described as targeted at three goals: promoting good governance, creating economic sustainability, and formulating and fast-tracking the implementation of an intermodal infrastructure road map.
Justice Secretary Leila A. de Lima, in a speech, said her department had taken a more active role in monitoring state policies and actions to ensure agencies are not undertaking anti-business and anti-developmental initiatives through the new Office for Competition.
“Competition includes as an essential component changes in regulations that stifle business, favor entrenched interest or simply, impose bureaucratic inertia on entrepreneurial spirit and energy,” she said.
“Where private interest or enterprises stifle competition, the Office for Competition will step in. Where government is not pro-business consistent with our national business, the Office for competition will also step into help” Ms. de Lima added.
Unnecessary and cumbersome rules and regulations which prolong business registration can be reviewed by the competition office, she noted.
The PBC, in its resolution, called on Congress to pass a National Industrialization Plan together with “ideal competition and trade policy frameworks supporting sectoral competitiveness.”
Transportation Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II, in a separate speech, outlined a P565-billion five-year transport program and the planned rehabilitation of Metro Manila’s light railways using a P6.368-billion allocation from Mr. Aquino’s P72-billion stimulus package.
“President’s Aquino’s stimulus package is supposed to preserve investment momentum. The [Transportation] department is part of this program by clearing the arteries of commerce and mobility,” Mr. Roxas said.
The five-year plan and stimulus package address the conference’s call for a “master plan in constructing airports and ports to rationalize or avoid duplication of investments.”
==============================================================================
Source: Business World, Oct. 13, 2011
To view the original article, click here.
Comment here