RP vows to maintain growth and development
RP vows to maintain growth and development
Yoko Kobayashi, Reuters, Manila
The Philippines adopted a series of economic measures on Monday to help sustain domestic growth in the face of the global slowdown following the Sept. 11 attacks and the campaign in Afghanistan.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was the main speaker at the much-touted "National Socio-Economic Summit of 2001", which gathered officials from government, business, labor and civil groups.
Security forces provided a human shield and blockades were put up to prevent some 3,000 protesters from approaching the venue, but the demonstrations were generally peaceful.
The moves to be tackled in the next six months included initiatives to improve peace and security, increase tax collections, pass legislation to reform the financial sector and increase agricultural productivity.
Measures also included incentives for foreign investment on a par with neighboring nations, additional tourism revenues, promoting information and communications technology and reducing infrastructure bottlenecks.
Among measures Arroyo highlighted included indexing excise taxes to inflation which Finance Secretary Jose Camacho said would bring in additional 4.5 billion pesos in state revenues. The 60 percent of the total would go to housing and the remaining 40 percent to local governments, he said.
Arroyo also promised to cut prices of medicines commonly used by the poor by half and pledged to reform cargo shipping and air transport to bring down the cost of food.
Arroyo said the government was also considering a proposal to earmark funds in next year's budget to improve rewards for information on terrorists, kidnappers, drug traffickers, coup plotters and other perpetrators of major crimes.
"Mindanao will continue to be a special focus for peace and development and the battle against poverty," she said, referring to the impoverished south of the country.
A summit statement said measures to strengthen the domestic economy and guard against a sharp fall in exports "need to be intensified to bolster the domestic sources of growth and to instill confidence and security".
The Philippine economy, which had a nominal GNP of 3,500 billion pesos (about US$67 billion) in 2000, is larger than Vietnam's but smaller than other neighbors including Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Annual GDP growth in the third quarter was at 2.9 percent after 3.2 percent in both the first and second quarters.
The government has projected full-year growth at 3.3 percent, but that would imply growth of 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter, which most economists say is too optimistic.