NCC JOINS ARANGKADA 2015 FORUM: Pushing Further for the Final Stretch

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The most prominent decision-makers and influencers in the Philippine economy and business climate came together last March 3, 2015 in an outstanding exchange of insights, information, and practices during the 4th Arangkada Philippines Forum held in Makati Shangri-La. NCC Private Co-Chair Mr. Guillermo Luz presents the status of the country’s competitiveness to the Arangkada 2015 Forum Delegates.
NCC Private Co-Chair Mr. Guillermo Luz presents the status of the country’s competitiveness to the Arangkada 2015 Forum Delegates.

NCC Private Co-Chair Mr. Guillermo Luz presents the status of the country’s competitiveness to the Arangkada 2015 Forum Delegates.
 
The National Competitiveness Council’s Private Co-Chair Guillermo Luz joined the elite roster of speakers and shared vital findings and results on the country’s competitiveness. Mr. Luz highlighted the country’s positive performance in most of the competitiveness reports and the country’s progress versus its ASEAN neighbours, moving from the bottom third to the middle ranks in the past four years, keeping in mind that the main goal is to move from the bottom third to the top third of the global rankings.  Mr. Luz emphasized that the Council’s immediate focus is to gauge the country’s competitiveness against its ASEAN counterparts and reported that while the country has moved up to the middle ranks in ASEAN, there is still a huge gap between the country’s standings and the top performers in the global arena. 

 
Mr. Luz also presented the impacts of moving the competitiveness rankings as indicated by improvements in the country’s FDI, Exports, GDP and improvements in lowering Unemployment and Poverty Incidence. The country’s performance in lowering Poverty Incidence, which only showed a marginal change – still far from the target of 16.6% – proves the pressing challenge of lifting poverty despite bold moves and doing significant improvements in many areas. Given this point, Mr. Luz urged the delegates to carefully consider administrative choices and continue the momentum to improve in this area.
 
The NCC Private Co-Chair also presented the initiatives of the Council and encouraged delegates to maximize the information provided through the reports. An important set of data gathered by NCC is the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index which presents the competitiveness of LGUs across the country. For 2015, Mr. Luz highlighted the council’s target of engaging 1,000 LGUs. This will empower businesses, private and public agencies, to assess the locality’s performance against global standards and, more importantly, take part in reforms and promote progress.

While the enabling bodies have achieved a lot in the past years, Mr. Luz reinforced the actuality that there is still a lot of work to be done and the key to lasting change is effective Public-Private partnerships and working together to ensure the irreversibility of the reforms, especially now that the country has about a year and a half left to maximize the current level of international confidence and exposure. This phase, which most speakers in the forum referred to as “the final stretch”, is the body’s strong chance to embed lasting change.
 
The National Competitiveness Council supports Arangkada, the Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines, and its partners in the pursuit to provide fundamental insights and recommendations to policy makers and business leaders, empower them to generate more foreign and local investments, produce more jobs, improve the overall economy, and ultimately enable the nation to realize its potential.