Incoming NEDA chief to focus on agriculture, manufacturing sectors

The next head of National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) will zero in on the agriculture and manufacturing sectors under the administration of incoming President Rodrigo Duterte to create more jobs for the people.

In an interview with Bernadette Reyes on GMA News TV’s “State of the Nation with Jessica Soho” on Wednesday, Dr. Ernesto Pernia, who is also a professor emeritus at the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Economics, said that the next administration will work harder to make economic growth more inclusive.

“There should be more investments or there should be more attention given to agriculture and manufacturing because these are more generative of jobs, including jobs for the less skilled,” he said.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on May 19 revealed that the Philippine economy grew by 6.9 percent in the first quarter of 2016, making the country the fastest-growing economy in Asia.

But Pernia said that the growth has been centralized among those in the top bracket.  

“Economic growth is largely benefitting the rich... Reverse the sharings of the economic growth,” he said.

Aside from generating more jobs in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, Duterte's administration plans to reform the income tax system, Pernia said. He added that they want to increase the bracket that is covered by the tax exemption and calibrate the system to the inflation.

He added that they are also looking into increasing sales tax in exchange of lowering personal income tax, pointing out that sales tax such as value added tax (VAT) has been an efficient way of collecting revenue.

Red tape

Pernia is also aligned with Duterte’s vision to reduce red tape in government.

While he understands that the current government has been careful in government spending because of the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), he said that it is time to act quicker on projects to entice more investors to the country.

“Many government agencies are so inefficient and slow-moving. Reducing red tape is much needed because investors are deterred by red tape,” he said.

Earlier, in an exclusive interview with GMA News anchor Jessica Soho, Duterte defended his eight-point economic agenda that included tweaking the income tax system as well as continue the macroeconomic policies.

The other points are the following:

• Accelerate infrastructure spending by addressing bottlenecks in the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program;
• Ensure attractiveness to foreign-direct investments by addressing the restrictive economic provisions in the Constitution and laws;
• Pursue a genuine agriculture development strategy by providing support to farmers, which can also be considered as a rural development strategy;
• Address bottlenecks in land administration and management systems;
• Expand and improve the implementation of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) by considering inflation; and
• Strengthen basic education system and provide scholarships for the tertiary education

But critics said it lacks socialism as he pronounced during the campaign.

"This is something against the oligarchs. This is one of the things that I would want to do,” Duterte stressed.  —Trisha Macas/KG, GMA News