17 December 2015

National Competitiveness Council

YEAR-END STATEMENT

            We are pleased to report on our operations and results for 2015. As you know, we track 12 global competitiveness indices to check Philippine performance. For this year, we have made gains in eight of the global reports (including the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, Economic Freedom Index, WEF Global IT Report, WEF Travel and Tourism Report, and the WIPO Global Innovation Index), dropped in three (including the World Bank-IFC Ease of Doing Business Report), and are still waiting for the results of the Transparency International report this December.

     Since we started in 2011, our goal has been to move the country from the bottom-third of world rankings into the top-third. We have attained that position on two of the indices – the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index and the Gender Gap Report (where we rank 7th in the world). However, while we have moved up into the middle ranks within ASEAN, we remain quite a distance from our goal of being in the top-third globally by the end of 2016. We have our work cut out for us.

    Part of our work at NCC involves building a foundation for long-term competitiveness in the country. These involve projects in the Gameplan for the Ease of Doing Business, the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index, Business Permits and Licensing System, Performance Governance System, Islands of Good Governance, and the Annual Enterprise Survey on Corruption. This work underscores our strategy that we need to work on a sectoral, geographical, and institutional program to improve overall national competitiveness.

      The results so far are encouraging. Over the last five years, the Philippines has been the country with the largest jumps in selected global competitiveness reports : +49 in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, +45 in the World Bank – IFC Ease of Doing Business Report, +39 in the Heritage Foundation’s Economic Freedom Index, and +38 in the WEF Global Competitiveness Index.

     But much still needs to be done. With ASEAN integration formally starting on 1 January 2016, it is doubly important that we pick up the pace of reform to enable the country to move up competitiveness rankings. There is a high correlation between these rankings and a country’s attractiveness to foreign direct investments. While the country has seen investments rise, we still have lots of catching up to do.

      We are nonetheless encouraged by the efforts thus far. The collaboration between the government and the private sector has been extremely high, one of the main reasons why we have had progress on so many fronts. We look forward to this continuing collaboration over the next several years as we feel this is critical to success in the global competitiveness arena.

Download the year end presentation here: http://www.competitive.org.ph/downloads/1250