The Philippines has finally joined the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils (GFCCs).

This was announced the other day by National Competitiveness Council (NCC) private sector chairman Cesar Bautista who represented the country in a global conference of 25 different national competitiveness councils held in Washington DC last December 9-10.

"The GFCC is the first international organization to focus on economic growth through the lens of competitive policy," Bautista told PNF.

It operates on the fact that companies or enterprises are the ones that compete in the global marketplace, not governments. The accent then is for governments to create the environment to enable their domestic enterprises to compete and win.

Best practices in promoting competitiveness in different countries including the Philippines were presented during the two-day conference.

Bautista said he was impressed by the practices of the United Kingdom, Belgium and Turkey of searching and selecting the most competitive company in their respective territories every year.

"We are now considering adopting here in the Philippines the same search for the most competitive companies every year. We will first consult stakeholders on the matter," Bautista said.

In the conference, participants adopted a 10-point principle of competitiveness. These include: significant private sector involvement, greater investments in research and development, focus on training the 21st century worker, regional and metropolitan success in competitiveness translates to national success, strong intellectual property rights, modern support infrastructure, open, transparent and fair trade practices, sustained innovation, transparency and efficiency of government regulations and benchmarking strides in competitiveness upgrading.

-- Abe P. Belena, PHILEXPORT News and Features