New NEDA chief to tackle growth bottlenecks, inclusive growth

The new National Economic and Development Authority Director-General Arsenio Balisacan announced on Thursday that he will be keen on addressing "critical constraints to growth" and make development inclusive and benefiting every Filipino.

 

“And this has been my marching order: to address the critical constraints that make growth slow, uneven and exclusive to certain sectors of society,” said Balisacan in his first press conference as NEDA chief. “There is also no question that we need the growth to be more inclusive, across and within sectors and areas of the country.”

 

“Certainly, the Philippine economy is growing. But we need to make it grow faster and to sustain high growth for the long term,” he added.

 

The NEDA chief said that he would strive to attain a 7 to 8 percent growth. However, he did not say when the economy would likely hit its Philippine Development Plan growth target. The country recorded 3.7 percent growth in 2011.

 

“There’s no reason for me to believe that we can’t do 7 percent to 8 percent growth,” he said. But, Balisacan immediately qualified this by interjecting that high growth is not “manna from heaven.”

 

The secretary believes that a key to poverty alleviation is improving agriculture productivity. Furthermore, the NEDA chief asserted that infrastructure should be of high quality and should support rural development.

 

“Infrastructure support is clearly linked with poverty reduction. The public-private partnership program is just one of the many tools to achieve this goal. We will continue the initial strides of the PPP Center and we hope to further make PPP projects attractive to investors even in rural areas,” Balisacan declared.

 

Balisacan also identified the growth bottlenecks.  These include the high cost of doing business and the low quality of human capital.

 

The secretary expressed his plans for the trade sector. Balisacan said that the country should tap other markets to export Philippine-made products to cushion the country from external shocks. He said, "We need to do more, and we may probably need to reinvent ourselves.”

 

When asked if the Scarborough conflict would have a significant impact on export growth, Balisacan replied, “We will likely see modest effects but we need to intensify our efforts to diversify trade with other countries.”

 

Balisacan was appointed NEDA director-general and Socioeconomic planning secretary by the President last week. He replaced Cayetano Paderanga Jr. who resigned from the post due to health reasons.

 

Balisacan served as an undersecretary in the Department of Agriculture in 2000. He was also Dean of the University of the Philippines School of Economics. —With Rouchelle R. Dinglasan/DVM/VS