MANILA, Philippines—The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) is focusing on strengthening local government units and harnessing their strengths to help prepare the country for the economic upswing expected to take place after the global recession.

In an interview, NCC co-chair Cesar Bautista said the upgrade of the country’s LGUs was NCC’s No. 1 priority project for the year, as stronger and more efficiently run LGUs are seen as catalysts to boosting the country’s global competitiveness as an investment hub.
He said the project aimed to create and nurture 120 LGU “Spark Plugs” that would serve as focus centers for specific sunrise industries.

“We’re classifying them according to the points that they feel they have something to offer as a key player in sunrise industries, including tourism, agribusiness, business process outsourcing and information technology, health and wellness, and mining,” he said.

“The economic cycle will eventually go back and we have to be prepared for that. We’re going to use this period to catch up with the rest of the world. We don’t want to be where we were before when the economy picks up again,” he added.

The LGU upgrading process started last year with the conduct of LGU summits to orient concerned LGUs about the project. Questionnaires were then distributed to LGU leaders to determine in which areas they had the strongest potential. - Philippine Daily Inquirer