No time to slacken in 2016, says NCC

The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) said there is no time for the Philippines to slacken despite 2016 being a transition year for the government as the country faces a tougher business climate in line with the formal start of the regional integration next year.

“With Asean integration formally starting on Jan. 1, it is doubly important that we pick up the pace of reform to enable the country to move up competitiveness rankings,” the NCC said.

“There is a high correlation between these rankings and a country’s attractiveness to foreign direct investments. While the country has seen investments rise, we still have lots of catching up to do,” it added.

The NCC said yesterday although results of the country’s competitiveness rankings this year have been encouraging, much is still needed to be done.

Among the 12 global competitiveness indices which the NCC tracks to check the country’s performance, the Philippines managed to gain in eight of the reports while posted a drop in three.

One more report, the Transparency International report, is due to come out this month.

“We are nonetheless encouraged by the results thus far. The collaboration between the government and the private sector has been extremely high, one of the main reasons why we have had progress on so many fronts. We look forward to this continuing collaboration over the next several years as we feel this is critical to success in the global competitiveness arena,” the NCC said.

Over the last five years, the NCC reported that the Philippines has been the country with the largest jumps in selected global competitiveness reports.

“Since we started in 2011, our goal has been to move the country from the bottom-third of the world rankings into the top-third. However, while we have moved up into the middle ranks within Asean, we remain quite a distance from our goal of being in the top-third globally by the end of 2016,” the NCC said.