WB, ADB Invited to PHL Dev’t Forum in Davao City

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said Wednesday that international financial institutions, led by the World Bank (WB), have been invited to attend the Philippine Development Forum slated to be held on Nov. 8-9 at the SMX Convention Center in Davao City.

”I would like to invite all these groups to participate in the Philippine Development Forum because there, they can air their concerns and we can discuss the future direction of the Philippine economy,” Dominguez said during a press briefing in Malacañang.

Aside from the WB, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and all the foreign embassies in the Philippines have been invited to attend the forum, he added.

Dominguez said his department has also invited different local nongovernmental organizations to join the forum, which carries the theme, “Poverty Reduction through the Vigorous Implementation of the Ten-Point Socioeconomic Agenda”.

The event, to be attended by various stakeholders across the country, will be used to lay down before the different stakeholders the Duterte administration’s priorities based on its 10-point socioeconomic agenda.

The priorities will be clustered into five breakout groups — Macroeconomic and Fiscal Policies; Mindanao Development; Rural Development; Human Capital Development; and Infrastructure and Competitiveness.

In the same media briefing, Dominguez said the Duterte administration is expected to increase public spending in the next six years to further boost overall growth performance.

”We need to rapidly build new roads, railways, ports to decongest our cities and reduce the logistics cost for the most basic goods of our people,” the finance chief said.

”While doing this, we aspire to expand and deepen the financial system. We need to broaden public access to banks and capital markets, support small business industries with accessible credit, and raise capital for industry.”

Dominguez said the Duterte administration has put in place “a clear, coherent economic strategy” that would reduce poverty rates in the medium term and lift the Philippine economy to high middle-income status.

”With the growth momentum, a low inflation rate, stable currency and strong political leadership, the Philippines earnestly opens our doors to do business with our neighbors. The new government has taken decisive steps to improve the ease of doing business in the country. This will allow us to respond helpfully to assist in the inflow of investments,” he said.

Dominguez said robust spending should be focused on infrastructure, particularly in areas outside greater Manila, to create good jobs.

”We have what we call an infrastructure gap. The amount of infrastructure that we need in the Philippines is really tremendous,” he said.

”So most of the infrastructure (funds) will be spent outside of Metro Manila because we want to raise people out of poverty and the poor people are outside.”

He said President Duterte’s recent visits to China and Japan brought in investment pledges of USD15 billion from China and more than USD25 billion from Japan.

”Marubeni verbally committed to get involved in USD3.2 billion worth of projects and USD14 billion medium and long-term projects in mass transport, roads, highways, water and power,” he said.

Dominguez said different business groups, including the Makati Business Club, American Chambers and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) have sought audience with President Duterte.

He also announced that the Legislative and Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) is expected to convene this coming weekend to discuss pending legislation.

”I suppose there will be a long list of agenda items on both sides, from the House and from the Senate, as well as, from the administration,” Dominguez said. (PNA) CVL/JFM