Strategies, prospects for economy highlighted

ECONOMISTS and industry experts on Friday highlighted the strategies and prospects for the Philippine economy this year during a webinar hosted by research and consultancy firm Center for Strategy, Enterprise and Intelligence in partnership with The Manila Times.

During the webinar, the former secretary of Socioeconomic Planning, Romulo Neri, introduced his investmentled inclusive growth framework, which is a standard macroeconomic paradigm for economic development.

“At the center of this framework is our objective for higher investments, which will result in higher employment and underemployment going down and increasing the productivity of our economy,” he emphasized.

Neri added that in order to maintain high investment levels, the Philippines requires productivity-enhancing infrastructure, stable macroeconomic conditions to reduce risks to investors and a supportive regulatory environment to support these investments while also reducing the risk of investors increasing the risk of investors increasing uncertainty.

“So if we have those, we will also be able to encourage more and more investments into the country,” he noted.

Advantages of PH

For his part, Trade Assistant Secretary Allan Gepty emphasized the Philippines’ advantages in terms of the digital economy.

“The Philippines, after profiling our capabilities and also the policies of the country, we have observed that there is potential to benefit immensely from this current trends of digitalization and globalization,” he said.

The high degree of internet penetration among the population, Gepty added, ensures that the digital economy will continue to expand rapidly in the future.

He further said that a 2020 study estimated that the internet economy in the Philippines will be valued at $28 billion by 2025, up from $7.5 billion in 2020. About 500,000 e-commerce businesses are also anticipated to contribute 3.4 percent of total economic output.

Meanwhile, economist Bernardo Villegas expects the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 7 percent this year, which is lower than the government’s goal of 7 to 9 percent.