A little over two years into his administration, President Benigno Aquino III is reveling in the limelight of a rosy economic future for the Philippines, helped in no small measure by the nation’s steady economic performance this year. In a speech before a conference of the country’s business organizations and chambers of commerce on October 11, the President declared that these robust economic gains have been the product of a winning strategy by his administration. Aquino said that these gains were the result of his administration’s commitment to balance proactive fiscal management, prudent spending, and reforms to encourage competitiveness.
The President told the business leaders and captains of industries that one of the hallmarks of his economic strategy is accelerated infrastructure development to fully realize the status of the Philippines as a viable investment destination. These infrastructures are the improved roads and bridges and the newly created transportation hubs in various regions of the country. On top of increased infrastructure development, Aquino said that the Philippines’ greatest advantage as a nation is the people. “Ultimately,” Aquino said, “we want a capable and empowered citizenry who can fill job openings and contribute to our agenda of inclusive growth.”
“A virtuous cycle has been ignited in the Philippines,” he told the business conference. He said that through reforms founded in good governance, integrity, and accountability, government has been able to level the playing field, giving rise to increased investor confidence.
The Philippines’ economic growth for the first semester of 2012 reached 6.1 per cent, exceeding expectations, and giving the government hope that it could easily achieve its target growth rate of 5.0 to 6.0 per cent GDP at the end of this year.
This accelerated economic growth has even caught the eyes of business analysts abroad, and has labeled the Philippines a “new tiger” both in the Southeast Asian region and globally.
It is our hope that these captains of industries and their businesses would pour back more of their earnings into the economy to give the government more revenues to spend on projects that benefit all 95 million Filipinos, like infrastructure development, health, education, and social services. These revenues would enable the Filipino people to become empowered consumers, skilled workers and future participants in what the President termed “inclusive growth.”
Posted by PinoyWatchDog.com
on October 22, 2012. Filed under EDITORIAL,OPINION.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
You must be logged in to post a comment Login