Philippines a 'rising tiger' - World Bank
BY CAI ORDINARIO
POSTED ON 02/05/2013 6:19 PM | UPDATED 02/05/2013 8:15 PM
MANILA, Philippines - Macroeconomic stability, and transparency and
accountability reforms in the Philippines have allowed the country to
catch up with its peers in the region, World Bank Philippines Country
Director Motoo Konishi said Tuesday, February 5.
"The Philippines is no longer the sick man of Asia, but the rising
tiger," Konishi told reporters in a briefing.
"The Philippine economy is going strong despite the global uncertainty,"
he added.
The Philippines grew 6.6% in 2012, besting even its closest rival,
Indonesia, which posted a 6.2% growth.
Jobs, infra spending
Konishi said this is an "opportune time" to implement other reforms that
would ensure the country is treading the path to inclusive growth.
He said inclusive growth means decent jobs and poverty reduction. To
achieve this, he said the country needs to place greater emphasis on
job-creating sectors such as agriculture and tourism.
Honing the two sectors will entail the passage of several laws such as
those on national land use, competition, and cabotage, which refers to
the carriage of cargo between two points within a country by a vessel or
vehicle registered in another country.
These measures must go hand in hand with better infrastructure spending.
Konishi said that the country has not yet increased its infrastructure
to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio to the recommended 5%. Currently,
the country spends 2.6% of GDP on infrastructure such as roads,
transport, power and irrigation.
Konishi also said the government must increase social services spending,
particularly for disadvantaged groups such as out-of-school youths,
indigenous peoples, and people with disabilities.
He earlier said that the Philippines needs to create 14.6 million jobs
from now until 2016 to absorb the country's labor force. Konishi said
the job opportunities locally as well as abroad are not enough to
accommodate all the Filipinos looking for better jobs.
"This is the most opportune time to speed up reforms for achieving
inclusive growth or growth that creates more decent jobs and reduces
poverty," Konishi said.
Aid
Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said donors have been given a better
view of what the Philippines still needs to meet its growth and
development potentials.
Mindanao, for one, is expected to get more Official Development
Assistance (ODA) from donors. The Philippines' poorest region is
expected to get more aid for road networks that connect farms and ports,
courtesy of the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
The government also said the USAID is focused on helping solve the
energy problem in the region while the United Nations and European Union
have expressed their willingness to help displaced communities due to
recent calamities that hit Mindanao.
For the social sectors, Department of Social Welfare and Development
(DSWD) Secretary Corazon Soliman said the government is helping 321,000
families transition to self-sufficiency after graduating from the
Conditional Cash Transfer program.
Soliman added that the DSWD is working with the Department of Labor and
Employment to remove some two million children out of child labor.
The agency, she added, is working with the Technical Education and
Skills Development Authority to train some 900,000 out-of-school youths
to gain training in vocational courses such as welding and cosmetology.
She also said the DSWD and the National Economic and Development
Authority are in the process of crunching poverty data. The two agencies
expect the results of the Family Income and Expenditure Survey conducted
in 2012 to be released in the first quarter of 2013. - Rappler.com
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