By Kris M. Crismundo
MANILA, April 21 (PNA) — The Philippines is urged to further improve its business climate in order to attract more foreign direct investments (FDIs) particularly in the manufacturing sector.
IHS Global Insight Chief Economist Rajiv Biswas said Tuesday that the local business environment remains a challenge for the Philippines despite its good economic growth.
“A key challenge for the Philippines is to improve the business climate for foreign investment. The Philippines is ranked 95 on the World Bank’s global Ease of Doing Business Index for 2015, which surveys 189 countries worldwide,” said Biswas.
“While the Aquino government has made efforts to improve this ranking, there is still a great deal of work to do to improve the overall competitiveness of the Philippines to attract large inflows of FDI,” he added.
He stressed that the government needs to focus in attracting FDI, particularly in manufacturing sector, for the country to be the export hub in ASEAN and in order to boost employment.
”This will help to reduce poverty rates by boosting jobs growth and household incomes,” the IHS economist said.
To improve the country’s business environment, Biswas mentioned that the government should increase its investments in infrastructure to create high quality transport infrastructure for roads, ports and airports.
There should also be more competitive power sector that will be favorable to manufacturing and services sectors.
“Tackling urban crime must also be another key priority, in order to make the Philippines a more attractive environment for foreign investment and tourism,” he also said.
The IHS has projected the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow at 6.4 percent this 2015 and at 5.6 percent in 2016.
“Sustained rapid growth will require continued economic reforms to improve the business climate of the Philippines, making it more attractive for FDI into sectors such as manufacturing and tourism,” said Biswas. (PNA)