By Joann Santiago
MANILA, Nov. 18 (PNA) — The Philippines’ sustained focus on providing quality education and skills to its citizen is seen to be a major factor on its contribution to the looming ASEAN integration.
In a briefing during the release of the latest Asian Economic Integration Monitor on Tuesday, Iwan J. Azis, head, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Office of Regional Economic Integration (OREI), said the Philippines ranked number 2, along with Indonesia, in terms of having quality education system among the ASEAN-5 countries.
Other members of the ASEAN-5 are Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Azis explained that the education factor makes the Philippines a major player in the regional integration since the AEC (ASEAN economic community (AEC)) “is now focusing on skilled labor.”
The Philippine government has started the implementation of 13-year basic education system and Azis said there is a need to further strengthen this to help the region to have a big pool of skilled labor.
For 2014, the government’s education budget amounts to Php383.1 billion, up by 17.1 percent from the previous year’s Php327 billion.
Aside from education, inflows from overseas Filipinos is another plus factor for the domestic economy.
In 2012, the country posted the largest remittances inflows at US$ 24.4 billion, highest among the five countries.
As of September 2014, total cash remittances to the Philippines reached US$ 17.6 billion, up by 6.1 percent year-on-year.
The robust growth of remittances, which is among the major growth drivers of the domestic economy, is due to the strong demand for overseas Filipino workers (OFW).
Meanwhile, in terms of domestic growth, government effectiveness and credit rating, the Philippines is at the middle.
For one, the country received investment grade ratings from the three major debt watchers namely: Fitch Rating, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and Moody’s Investors Ratings in 2013.
This happened on back of the continued improvement of fiscal situation, rising external payments position and the proven resiliency of the banking sector, among others.
Debt watchers consider the continued positive outturn for the domestic economy in the coming years but said that risks remains, thus, the need for the government to address these risks.
Azis said that in general, the Philippines’ integration in Asia, not just in the ASEAN, continues to rise notably in trade, foreign direct investments (FDIs), equity, outbound migration, and tourism arrivals.
”The growth rate is among the highest in Asia,” he noted.
In 2013, the domestic economy posted a growth of 7.2 percent, second highest in Asia after China and is above the government’s six to seven percent growth target for the year.
In the first half of 2014, growth stood at six percent, lower against year-ago’s 7.8 percent partly due to the calamities that hit the Visayas in the last quarter of 2013.
Economic officials are confident that growth would be faster in the second half of the year in part due to infrastructure spending.
The government’s growth target for 2014 is a range between 6.5-7.5 percent.
For the ASEAN, the ADB official said the integration will be backed by economic resilience and solid domestic and regional demand.
He also stressed that the integration in Asia, not just in the ASEAN, will continue to differ from Europe.
“Asian integration — and the institutions supporting it will focus on strengthening national economies by harmonizing rules and regulations in finance and trade, while managing the risks from a very diverse region,” he added. (PNA)