The National Competitiveness Council: the silent champion of change

Case in point, the process of business registration has been trimmed down from 16 steps to just six and the number of corporate taxes has been consolidated from 36 to 13. All these, among many others, have made the country more competitive. Even the LGU’s have began getting their acts together with Naga, Iloilo and Angeles City leading the way as the most competitive LGUs.

The NCC has played a crucial role in making this happen. governance including anti-corruption, transparency, and human resource development, among others. In addition, sixteen regional groups have been set up to hasten regional competitiveness.

The NCC utilizes 12 globally accepted matrices to gauge where the country stands in various areas of competitiveness. Our global rank is a direct reflection of how effective the NCC has been in fulfilling its mandate.

The two matrices most commonly referred to by analysts are the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum and the Ease of Doing Business Report of the International Finance Corporation. The former looks into the basic conditions of the economy such as the strength of its institutions, quality of infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, labor efficiency, etc., while the latter measures how difficult it is to navigate the bureaucracy.

Other matrices include the Economic Freedom Report (which measures, property rights protection, efficiency of regulatory agencies, etc.), the Corruption Perception Index, the Travel & Tourism Report and the Global Information Technology Report. Six othermatrices complete the list. They are thoroughly explained on the NCC’s website.

In the late 90’s, the Philippines was at the bottom 20% of the heap along with most of developing Africa. There was a slight improvement a decade later as we made it to the bottom 33%. The NCC has made it its mission to elevate the country’s competitiveness level to the top 33% by 2016.

As of 2014, the Philippines has become the most improved country, worldwide.Although still not in the top 33%, we’ve managed to climb to the top 50%, in most rankings.

In the WEF Global Competitiveness Report, for instance, the Philippines now ranks at 52nd place out of 144 economies, a 33 notch jump since 2010. We are ahead of Vietnam who is at 68th position but behind Indonesia at 34th place. Interestingly, we are already in the upper 33% of the pack in the subcategories of “macroeconomic environment”, “business sophistication” and “size of market”.

In the Ease of Doing Business Report, we’ve jumped 53 places in four years to 95thposition out of 189 countries. We showed the greatest improvement in the subcategories of “resolving insolvency”, “getting electrical connection” and “ease in property registration”. Indonesia is at 101st position while Vietnam is at 78th place.

As for the other rankings, we are at 76th place out of 178 nations in the Economic Freedom Report; 85th out of 175 in the Corruption Perception Index (an improvement from our 134th position in 2010); 82nd out of 140 in Travel and Tourism Competitiveness; and 78th out of 148 in the Global Information Technology Report.

The NCC still has a year to realize its objective of placing the Philippines in the top 33% of world competitiveness. Recently, it launched its Gameplan 3.0 to achieve this. Gameplan 3.0 calls for greater use of automation, elimination of procedural redundancies and cascading reforms to the municipal levels.

An increase in competitiveness translates to more investments, jobs, wealth creation and the widening of the middle class. This is why the NCC role is crucial to national development. The current board has done an impeccable job not only in terms of improving competitiveness but more so in showing us how to effect reforms quickly and effectively. This is why the current structure of the NCC, including its private sector representatives, should be spared from any changes in government leadership. With luck, they can start on Gameplan 4.0 to put the country in the top 10% of global competitiveness ranking. Andrew is an economist, political analyst and businessman. He is a 20-year veteran in the hospitality and tourism industry. For comments and reactions, e-mail andrew_rs6@yahoo. com. More of his business updates are available via his Facebook page (Andrew J. Masigan). Follow Andrew on Twitter @aj_masigan.