Purisima cites need to put up infra, cut cost of doing business

Purisima said: “ If you are not a part of global supply chains, then you will probably be not competitive and you’ll probably be out of the loop.”

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said that there is a need to put up more infrastructure, improve the cost of doing business in the country, and invest in the skills of the Filipino people to make sure that the Philippines becomes part of the global supply chains.

“The Philippines as a country which is right in the middle of what will be the most dynamic economic region for the next 30 to 50 years, will have to make sure that global supply chains go through us, or at least, a major part of global supply chains go through us, because that is the one that drives global economy,” Purisima said at the SupplyLink 2013 Annual Conference and Exhibit of the Philippine Institute for Supply Management yesterday.

“Supply chain management is at the heart of business. It’s at the heart of a country’s national agenda. If you are not a part of global supply chains, then you will probably be not competitive and you’ll probably be out of the loop,” Purisima added.

In the Philippines, it is more expensive to ship goods from Mindanao to Manila than to bring in products from other parts of the world.

“The administration is doing its best to address all the constraints to our supply chain. Infrastructure constraint, of course, (we need to make sure that we have) world-class ports and airports, world-class refrigeration, drying facilities, and world class IT, in making sure that goods are there at the right time, wherever the consumer is, at the right price,” Purisima said.

“The challenge is to make sure that government can entice private companies to (come to) the Philippines to put up a part of their supply chain here, so infrastructure is very important,” he added.

Purisima also noted that there will be more opportunities for the Philippines by 2015 when the Asean becomes a single market but stressed the need for connectivity to attract investments.

“Here, the opportunity of the Philippines is substantial especially if you consider the fact that the Philippines will be the second largest in terms of population, and probably, the biggest in terms of mobile population,” Purisima said.

“But if we don’t have the connectivity, then our people will have no choice but to work in other countries. Connectivity is very important if we are to attract manufacturing entities back into the Philippines, if we are to attract corporations back into the Philippines as their headquarters or point of entry into the integrated Asean market,” he added.

Purisima said that the Department of Finance is working closely with the Bureau of Customs for the implementation of the National Single Window which where one can get permits from over 40 agencies with just one portal.

“If we’re able to operationalize this, we can link this to the National Single Windows of other countries so that your imports are automatically lodged in the Philippines National Single Window as an export, deducing the need for human intervention, deducing opportunity for corruption, and improving our ability to catch smuggling which still is a big issue for us,” he said. –ANGELA CELIS, Malaya