MANILA, Philippines — The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) is pushing for the creation of longer-term industry roadmaps rather than short-term plans to enable domestic industries to build their global competitiveness.

“We are designing now the industry roadmaps,” said NCC private sector co-chairman Guillermo Luz.

He said the Department of Trade and Industry is inviting industries to prepare 10-year industry roadmaps. At present, most industries have plans but these are normally up to six years or planned based on the current administration’s tenure. Industry plans normally get revised with the entry of a new administration.

Each industry will be tasked to map out growth prospects as well as policy, regulatory, infrastructure, and human resource environment needed to succeed.

So far, the NCC has identified 13 industries that have to come up with their long term roadmaps. These are agribusiness, BPO/KPO, electronics, mining and mineral products, shipbuilding/repairs/maintenace, shipping/ship management, metal/steel fabrication, tourism, renewable energy, logistics and infrastructure, auto/parts/components and housing.

The NCC will also maintain focus on governance and bureaucracy, infrastructure, macroeconomic management, education, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency and technological readiness.

According to Luz, governance and bureaucracy, infrastructure and education are the most critical factors as they rank lowest in the surveys.

“But we expect big gains this year,” he said.

On the factors affecting the country’s ranking in the “Ease of Doing Business” of the International Finance Corp., which ranked the Philippines 136 out of 183, the NCC will put emphasis on starting a business, other permits, credit information, business insolvency and procedures and enforcing contracts.

While all the factors in the IFC survey have to deal with improvement in government processes and issues, Luz, however, said the “enforcing contracts” factor will only focus on private to private sector transactions and not involve government contracts because the IFC is a study of the private sector business.

“This is more on private contracts, purchases of private companies,” he said when asked if the “enforcing contracts” factor also refers to government contracts.

Luz said there have been huge backlogs in the courts for private versus private companies or commercial cases. He, however, could not come up with figures or estimates, at least.

“If these cases could be resolved then how much more the private sector could run smoothly,” he said noting this would require reforms in the judicial process.

He was, however, defensive on some government contracts that are under review saying the reviews are being focused only those perceived to be anomalous or with corruption issues but once the “government is done with the review they will proceed with the projects.” (BCM)