Source: www.gov.ph
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2008

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will convene Monday the National Competitiveness Council to review the measures that will make the Philippines more globally competitive and business friendly.
Trade Secretary Peter Favila, in a press briefing this morning in Malacanang said the President will meet the private sector and various working groups of the Council to reassess the country’s competitiveness in a move to attract more investments.
“We will make a review of initial steps undertaken, timelines, and where we are lagging and progressing,” Favila said.
The President set the meeting with the National Competitiveness Council as one of the country’s biggest foreign benefactors, the World Bank-International Finance Corporation (WB-IFC), said that the Philippines ranked 140th out of 181 countries surveyed on ease of doing business.
The survey was conducted on cities to gauge global competitiveness in ease of opening businesses, of securing licenses and permits, of registering property , and other details covered by the concept of doing business in the Philippines.
Favila stressed that the government has been implementing much-needed reforms to make the country more business –friendly that it has to be noted that the WB-IFC survey covered the fiscal year July 2007 to June 2008 and that the survey principally focused on respondents in Manila.
“IFC had just informed me that the reforms we have put in place within this fiscal year had not been considered because of the cut-off,” he said.
Nevertheless, the government is bent on further improving the business climate to be more globally competitive as it has been the overarching goal of the President to attract more investments.
He said the government has been working on simplifying business regulations and practices as well building a national business registry and harmonizing conflicting laws to ease doing business in the country.
Favila suggested that the survey should cover places outside Metro Manila because there are many cities and provinces that have executed solid reforms thus making their competitiveness much improved.
He cited another survey with a much wider scope---the Institute of management Development (IMD) where the Philippines performance improved five notches in the rankings with the same four major factors covered namely economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.
“The difference between the two surveys is that IFC focused on Manila only while the IMD survey covered the whole country,” he said.
“I would like to point out that in the IMD survey, we improved and ranked 40th in world competitiveness and the performance of the country scored positive in economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure,” he said.
He added that strong domestic economy and improved state finances were the main factors for the upgraded ranking.
The IMD survey, Favila said, measured 55 countries on the basis of 323 criteria, which “shows how broad it is.”
Nevertheless, Favila said, irregardless of survey results, the government has put in place several reforms which include local government units being linked to the national business registry, continuing streamlining of business licensing process, fast-tracking the implementation of a national Single Window with the Bureau of Customs(BOC) and the Import-Export Licensing agencies.
He said the President has given the BOC the first Tuesday of October to “deliver results.”
IFC is the World Bank’s investment arm for the private sector. This 2008-2009 fiscal year, it will lend Philippine business firms $564 million, which is more than four times the $130 million it loaned to the Philippines for FY 2007-2008. The IFC loans will mainly be given to the infrastructure, agribusiness, power and financial sectors. - www.gov.ph