#MINDANAO

The July 6 editorial of Manila Bulletin featured our national goal of achieving upper middle income status. This is defined in the article as a Gross National Income (GNI) of between $4,466 to $13,845 per year. This figure is achieved by dividing a country’s total income with the number of its citizens. My first comment is that upper middle income status is a wide bracket. That means that higher income levels within this bracket will mean less poor Filipinos, and that Filipino families will have better homes, more access to opportunity, stable livelihoods at home – the building blocks of Ambisyon Natin 2040. That said, I have little doubt that we are on track to meeting this initial upper middle income aim within the decade. The challenge, once we do breach this level, is staying within that income band and making progressive improvements to enable us to go beyond the bracket. This may be challenging when faced with global economic headwinds, like natural disasters that often harm our capability to sustain growth. We know that there is still much we can do to improve recent increases in GNI to allow us to be a competitive economy. It is high time we focus on achieving this as a national goal. A key imperative to achieve and stay within this income level is to expand the manufacturing sector. This segment has the potential to harness our natural wealth and agricultural output to transform them into higher value products that we use, and can export. In turn, Gross National Income can increase. Growing our manufacturing output will ensure steady jobs for a larger number, expanding economic demand and growth further. This also creates a better opportunity for agriculture to rise as well, since factories will increase demand for the raw materials, many of which come from Mindanao. Another related imperative is to boost the Visayas and Mindanao economies. We need to disperse industry to these regions to harness more of the raw materials there to create income opportunities for residents who are working in Metro Manila but are longing to go home. This will increase the economic output of these regions and will contribute to raise over-all GNI of the country. The good news that can support the above imperatives is that important economic reforms such as the CREATE Law can provide the incentives needed for encouraging manufacturing in the regions. The recently launched National Innovation Agenda will also do much to harness technology for manufacturing. Likewise, key elements of the 10-point agenda of the DTI under Secretary Alfred Pascual focus on innovation that can promote manufacturing. The programs need to be executed quickly with the right budgetary allocations so that manufacturing investments can be promoted.

Davao Investment Conference

Hosted by the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Davao Investment Conference on July 17-19 will promote investments in key economic growth drivers, such as manufacturing, agricultural processing, Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism, human capital development, and Information and Communications Technology. Encouraging investments in these sectors, among others, will add value to the Davao regional economy.