Incoming economic managers to meet business leaders on Duterte’s 10-point agenda

Ten days before President-elect Rodrigo Duterte assumes office on June 30, his economic team will meet business leaders in a two-day conference to seek recommendations as regards his 10-point economic agenda.

In a statement on Wednesday, Duterte's camp said his economic managers would meet more than 300 business leaders frp, across the country on June 20 to 21 in Davao City at the consultative workshop dubbed "Sulong: Hakbang Patungo sa Kaunlaran."

Sulong was co-orgainzed by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Mindanao Business Council.

At the two-day summit, incoming Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez will present the Duterte administration's 10-point socioeconomic agenda to generate recommendations from the business sector.

Incoming National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Director-General Ernesto Pernia will discuss the country's economic situation.

The draft program of "Sulong" listed the president-elect's 10-point socioeconomic agenda:

• Continue and maintain current macroeconomic policies, including fiscal, monetary, and trade policies.
• Institute progressive tax reform and more effective tax collection, indexing taxes to inflation. A tax reform package will be submitted to Congress by September 2016.
• Increase competitiveness and the ease of doing business. This effort will draw upon successful models used to attract business to local cities (e.g., Davao), and pursue the relaxation of the Constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership, except as regards land ownership, in order to attract foreign direct investment.
• Accelerate annual infrastructure spending to account for 5% of GDP, with Public-Private Partnerships playing a key role.
• Promote rural and value chain development toward increasing agricultural and rural enterprise productivity and rural tourism.
• Ensure security of land tenure to encourage investments, and address bottlenecks in land management and titling agencies.
• Invest in human capital development, including health and education systems, and match skills and training to meet the demand of businesses and the private sector.
• Promote science, technology, and the creative arts to enhance innovation and creative capacity towards self-sustaining, inclusive development.
• Improve social protection programs, including the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer program, to protect the poor against instability and economic shocks.
• Strengthen implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law to enable especially poor couples to make informed choices on financial and family planning.

This proposed 10-point agenda "emphasizes the need to maintain accelerated economic growth while ensuring that gains are broadly shared by the Filipino people."

"This effort is not a stand-alone undertaking. It is anchored on the long-term Filipino 2040 vision and the next medium-term Philippine Development Planning cycle, both led by NEDA," the statement read.

Sulong is envisaged as a yearly event; the first of an annual series over the next six years, and perhaps beyond, in tandem with a civil society consultative conference, according to the incoming DOF's transition team.

The President-elect Duterte is also expected to attend the conference as he will give a response on the results of the recommendations generated from the workshop. —John Ted Cordero/NB, GMA News