Long-standing concerns cited

MAJOR business groups have pressed President Benigno S. C. Aquino III to focus on some long-standing issues in the remaining three years of his term to “generate the greatest impact in achieving… inclusive growth through job generation, poverty reduction and global competitiveness.”

  “Philippine business groups, including the Joint Foreign Chambers… put together a list of key issues and proposed measures which we strongly believe your administration should focus on for the remainer of your term,” read a letter, dated June 19, that was signed by leaders of 13 local and foreign chambers.

They identified eight issues, namely: implementation of strategic transport infrastructure projects must be accelerated; enact an effective anti-trust law and competition policy; overhaul the Customs bureau, form an oversight body with private sector representation, and pass a law simplifying Customs procedures and aligning them with international standards; streamline incentive-giving laws, simplify procedures and improve coordination of investment agencies; preserve the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, implement an internationally competitive fiscal regime, ensure conformity of local ordinances with national laws and respect rights under contracts; additional power capacities should be committed and bring down the cost of power “swiftly”; amend provisions of the Constitution that restrict foreign participation and, in the interim, reduce list of industries in the Foreign Investment Negative List; as well as address competence and efficiency issues in the justice system.

“There is a need to restate many of these issues as they have not yet been resolved and need to be reflected in certain laws,” Management Association of the Philippines President Melito S. Salazar, Jr., one of the signatories, said by phone yesterday.