Ramos calls for educated workers

Ramos calls for educated workers

MANILA (AFP): The Philippines is losing its competitive edge in providing low-cost labor and must upgrade its educational standards to offer more skilled labor instead, President Fidel Ramos said yesterday.

"We have been competing as a nation on the strength of our low-cost labor," he told local university officials.

"But this competitive edge is fading as other countries like Vietnam, India, Indonesia and China, have entered the global economy with cheaper labor."

He credited economic tigers like Singapore and Taiwan with becoming internationally competitive through education but admitted that "in competition among the titans, we are still many miles away."