Reforms underway to boost Phl competitiveness

Two more years and the Philippines will be able to reach the coveted goal of piercing through the top third of global competitiveness rankings, the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) said, in line with reforms planned to accelerate the country’s ascent.

Among 12 international competitiveness reports monitored by NCC, the Philippines has managed to breach the top third of only two – the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report and the Global Competitiveness Index.

The country, however, was ousted from the top third of the Global Competitiveness Report in its latest edition released a few weeks ago.

“So it used to be two, now we’re down with one. I think for WEF Global Competitiveness Index we can get there (top third) fairly soon. We were already there but we just dropped. For the others maybe we are still two years away at least to get there, maybe three. But I want to have an accelerated program so I want it in two years,” NCC private sector co-chairman Guillermo Luz told The STAR.

Luz said the NCC wants to put more attention into the WEF Global Competitiveness Index, the International Finance Corp.’s Ease of Doing Business Report, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and the Economic Freedom Index of the Heritage Foundation.

He said discussions have been made with the government on how to accelerate programs aimed at boosting the country’s competitiveness.

“I need to make specific recommendations what to do to improve and I’ve given some preliminary ideas,” Luz said.

For the Global Competitiveness

Report, in particular, Luz said the government should focus on bureaucracy, infrastructure, and science and technology and innovation.

“In infrastructure, what we’re looking at is procurement law. If procurement law is streamlined and simplified then we will be able to work better with implementation. If we want to move infrastructure spending to equivalent

of five to seven percent of GDP, the only way to do that is improve the absorptive capacity of agencies and also improve the procurement procedures. Make it easier for agencies to be able to procure construction services,” he said.