DTI taps French execs for rebuild program

These four key goals are intended to keep jobs so people will have income that will bring back demand, which will entice companies to produce more supply

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is encouraging business executives in France to help the country rebuild from the pandemic, by ushering them four key goals, namely reducing trade deficit, improving value creation, increasing backward and forward linkages, and modernizing Philippine industries.

In a recent virtual meeting with the French executives of MEDEF International, DTI secretary Ramon Lopez underscored the four key goals, deemed imperative for the realization of the REBUILD PH Program, which stands for Revitalizing Businesses, Investments, Livelihoods and Domestic Demand.

MEDEF International is a non -profit private-funded organization created in 1989 by MEDEF, the French Business Confederation, which is the most represented organization of the French private sector at an international level.

Lopez also expressed hope that France can be the country’s partner in rebuilding a post-pandemic world that is more inclusive and safer for everyone.

“These four key goals are intended to keep jobs so people will have income that will bring back demand, which will entice companies to produce more supply. We must therefore bring back business confidence and revive consumer confidence while balancing the importance of public health and running the economy,” Lopez said.

The session aimed at directly providing the French business community an opportunity to learn about the Philippines’ action plans in reviving its economy during the time of COVID-19.

Lopez explained to French businessmen that the REBUILD PH Program takes a demand-side strategy to revitalize the economy through key factors of our gross domestic product: consumption, investment, government expenditure, export and import.

Also during the virtual meeting, DTI undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo, who also serves as managing head of the Board of Investments (BoI), identified the electronics, healthcare/pharmaceutical, aerospace, Information Technology-Business Process Management as sectors of complementation between the Philippines and France, as the latter seeks avenues to relaunch their economy which suffered a 13.8 percent drop in their GDP during the second quarter of 2020.