PCCI business agenda to make RP compete

Businessmen belonging to the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) today will present to President Benigno Aquino 3rd a 10-point agenda that they believe would boost the country’s economic competitiveness.
Also, PCCI members on Thursday said that restrictions in the Constitution and various laws concerning sectors such as media and labor should be softened.

The chamber, meanwhile, said that the Aquino administration was making inroads in easing doing business in the country.

It, however, pitched for striking a balance between adhering to the Constitution and laws and opening up the economy further.

The PCCI, reputedly the largest business group in the country, called on the government to put in place pieces of legislation or measures that would:

• craft a National Industrialization Plan;

• create a National Infrastructure Development Plan to oversee the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative;

• define key energy and power objectives in terms of supply reliability and quality, rate/tariff, competitiveness and sustainability;

• ensure consistent and stable mining policies;

• review the entire Philippine tax system;

• modernize the agriculture sector via full implementation of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997, or Republic Act (RA) 8435;

• promote the tourism industry;

• adopt the Business Permit and Licensing System as an integral part of the government’s business process reform initiatives;

• fully implement the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, or RA 9003; and

• review the impact of existing trade agreements and provide strategic guidelines for future trade negotiations.

The PCCI said that this 10-point agenda is “aimed at laying a medium-term, six-year economic policy framework that would serve as springboard to further secure a more competitive and investor-friendly Philippine business climate.”

In a forum during the 36th Philippine Business Conference and Expo also on Thursday, Felipe Gozon, PCCI vice president for the environment, said that restrictions on ownership of media and other businesses are deterring some potential investors.

Gozon is the chairman, president and chief executive officer of GMA Network Inc., a leading broadcasting company in the country.
He said that the country’s labor law is “too slanted in favor of labor.”

During the same forum, Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo said that the Aquino administration was trying its best to address businessmen’s concerns.
Domingo cited the government’s PPP project as a venue to address the lack of infrastructure.

He said that while he agrees that “there are many restrictive portions of the Constitution,” he added that it is “hard to determine if the Constitution has to be changed.”

According to Domingo, “[the Philippines is] one of the few [countries] with security of tenure [in the labor law]… There’s a tradeoff—the more restrictive [the law], the less investments [the country gets].”

“We recognize that laborers need some protection, but the question is, to what degree? So that we can become competitive with our neighbors [in terms of labor costs],” he said. –Ben Arnold O. De Vera, Reporter, Manila Times