US think-tank blames GMA for economy’s slide

WASHINGTON — The Arroyo administration has failed to do anything substantial to liberalize the economy of the Philippines as it continues to slide from being one of Asia’s richest economies to being one of its poorest, a 2010 Index of Economic Freedom report said.

The report by the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think-tank in Washington, and The Wall Street Journal, gauged the economic success of 183 countries around the world and ranked the Philippines in 109th place.

It gave the Philippines an overall economic freedom score of 56.3 points, fractionally lower than last year, reflecting small reductions in monetary freedom and freedom from corruption.

“The government’s failure to do anything substantial to liberalize the economy has set back efforts to attract much-needed foreign investment in basic industries and infrastructure and the Philippines continues a long slide from being one of Asia’s richest economies to being one of its poorest,” the report said.

The report released on Wednesday rated countries in 10 specific categories — labor freedom, business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights and freedom from corruption — and the results were averaged to create an overall score.

The report said the Philippine economy relied heavily on emigrants’ remittances equivalent to about 10 percent of GDP, reflecting a lack of domestic economic dynamism.

It ranked the Philippines in 20th out of 41 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Its overall score was rated as slightly below world and regional averages.

Hong Kong with 89.7 points and Singapore (86.1 points) ranked first and second in the overall standings for the 16th straight year, followed in order by Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, United States, Denmark and Chile.

Following are the scores of the Philippines in the 10 different categories: trade freedom (77.8) ), financial freedom (50), fiscal freedom (78.8), government spending (91.2) and monetary freedom (72.7), property rights (30), labor freedom (51.9) business freedom (48.1), investment freedom (40) and freedom from corruption (23).

The country ranked above average in the first five categories and below average in the last five. –Jose Katigbak, STAR Washington Bureau (The Philippine Star)