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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Gab seeks to strengthen national competitiveness
THE heads of some of the major business organizations met recently with the core group of the National Competitiveness Summit to prepare for the big event on September 29.
The meeting was held at the Antonio de las Alas Hall of RCBC Tower which was attended by Donald Dee, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) and of the Confederation of Garment Exporters; Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. president of Philippine Exporters Confederation (Philexport); Francis Chua president of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCCI); Meneleo Carlos, chairman of Federation of Philippine Industries; Robert Young and Ernesto Santiago of Seipi; Feliciano Torres; president of Motor Vehicles Parts Manufacturers Association of the Philippines; Guillermo Luz of Makati Business Club; Alejandro Escaño of the Philippine Productivity and Quality Movement; John Forbes of the American Chamber; Dennis Orlina, president of the Philippine Chamber of Handicraft Industries; Atty. Virgilio Sanchez of the Christmas Décor Producers and Exporters Association of the Philippines.
The program is being developed by Professor Federico Macaranas, who is the conference director and his colleagues at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center using the approach developed by Michael Porter of Harvard Business School.
Ambassador Cesar Bautista, chairman of the private sector core group, gave a background of the competitiveness summit which will follow the public-private sector partnership (PPP) to achieve maximum participation. Under the PPP approach, the government sector "enables" but the private sector is expected to "drive and steer" the activities. "Competitiveness is a shared responsibility," said Bautista "with the private sector probably accounting for 55 percent of the outcome and the government, 45 percent".
Former trade secretary Rizalino Navarro, another member of the core group, emphasized the importance of focusing on the key factors towards competitiveness and the need to achieve quick wins to gain confidence and gain pride among the business, labor and government players. "There are already task forces in place looking at corruption, red tape, peace and order, etc.," he said. "Let us not duplicate but instead let us work together with them since we will have more than enough work to keep us busy," Navarro said.
There will be a series of workshops in the weeks leading to the summit in Malacañang where the major action programs to strengthen competitiveness will be defined and monitoring mechanisms will be established. It is expected that more than 500 leaders from both the public and private sectors will actively participate in both the workshops and the summit itself.
The major business organizations pledged to engage their memberships in participating in the competitiveness undertaking. They will be identifying about 5 major issues that need to be addressed during the summit to make the Philippines globally competitive in the next few years. (Philexport News and Features/Sunnex)
(September 6, 2006 issue)
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