The Philippines announce new ambitious plans to speed infrastructure development

MANILA – A government in the Philippines would not be a proper one if he did not announce at least two plans to boost infrastructure in the country and help lifting the population out of poverty. The Benigno Aquino Jr. presidency is no exception to it and announced last Monday a massive budget to be spent on building up infrastructures. Aquino mandate, now in its second half of its term has seen economic growth picking up but reaching only a happy few. The Philippines remain sadly one of the least developed countries within Southeast Asia. 
 

The revised Philippine Development Plan sets then more ambitious economic targets to address persistent concerns that poor Filipinos are left out reach of the country’s recent dramatic economic growth. Among the new targets is the lowering of the poverty incidence from 25.2 per cent of the population in 2012 to 18.0 to 20.0 per cent by 2016, economic officials said.

The government in 2011 had targeted poverty incidence to fall to 16.6 per cent by 2016 but economic planners said this was no longer realistic.
 

“It does not mean that we can do nothing but wait until the benefits of economic expansion ‘trickle down’ to the poor,” Socio-economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said in an introduction to the revised plan.
 

Despite economic growth of more than seven percent in recent years — among the highest rates in Asia — unemployment has remained high while the rate of poverty has barely fallen.Simply stated, the gains have yet to materialise into actual, tangible improvements in the lives of the majority of the people, the report said.
 

Under the revised plan, the economy is expected to grow by 7.5 to 8.5 percent annually by 2016 compared to the original target of 7.6 percent set in 2010 when President Benigno Aquino took office.
 

Chief among the poverty-fighting measures is an increase in infrastructure spending to five percent of gross domestic product by 2016, compared to the 2013 level of less than three percent. This will include reconstruction efforts after Super Typhoon Haiyan and a killer earthquake left thousands dead and devastated large areas in the central Philippines last year, said Emmanuel Esguerra, deputy director of the National Economic Development Authority.
 

These reforms in turn will improve the connections between urban centres where growth has been concentrated and the poverty-stricken rural areas where the majority of the country’s 100 million people live, the plan said.
 

The country’s crumbling infrastructure has long been cited by businessmen and economists as one of the biggest obstacles to prosperity, raising transport and power costs, keeping regions mired in underdevelopment and discouraging investors. Critics charge that only a few sectors are consequently enjoying the benefits of the country’s economic growth while many Filipinos have not been touched by it. Building infrastructure will be crucial to help spreading the benefits of tourism. 
 

A lack of air connectivity and a limited network of highways have also a negative effect on tourism development. Despite strong growth in total foreign arrivals, Philippines tourism figures are relatively weak compared to surrounding nations. In 2013, the country welcomed only 4,681,307 surpassing the previous year’s record of 4,272,811 set in 2012 by 9.56%.
 

However the Philippines receive now less travellers than Vietnam or Indonesia… For January and February, total arrivals were up by 3.5% to 884,014 foreign visitors. 
 

(Partial source from AFP)