- Published on Tuesday, 27 November 2012 21:38
- Written by Mia M. Gonzalez | Reporter
Malacañang said that
it is satisfied for now with the ranking of the Philippines in the
Forbes list of Best Countries for Business, noting improvements in the
country’s ratings in some areas even as it stayed at 87th place.
Palace Deputy
Spokesman Abigail Valte said in a news briefing on Tuesday that the
Aquino administration hopes to see an improvement in the country’s
ranking as it continues its pursuit of economic reforms.
“[We are] satisfied for the time being but moving forward, we hope to see improvement in the ranking,” Valte added.
She said that while
the Philippines remained at 87th place, there was an improvement in the
country’s rating in terms of monetary freedom, innovation and investor
protection.
“We’ve managed to gain
a good bit of ground in some of the indicators. We’ve also gone down in
some and we’re trying to look at everything that contributes to the
ranking. But it’s good that we’ve managed to maintain it considering
that there are now more countries that are being considered for the
Forbes list,” Valte added.
She said investor protection is one of the concerns of President Aquino.
“We’ve always said the
President has always been pushing that we level the playing field when
it comes to not just foreign investors but to domestic investors, as
well. So it’s a very good indication that our ranking went up
specifically when it comes to investor protection,” Valte added.
The Forbes profile on
the Philippines said the Aquino administration has “reduced public debt
to below 50 percent of GDP [gross domestic product] and obtained several
ratings upgrades on sovereign debt so that the Philippines is now close
to investment grade” but noted the lack of government spending,
especially on infrastructure in 2011.
“The Aquino
administration has vowed to focus on improving tax-collection
efficiency, rather than imposing new taxes, as a part of its
good-governance platform. The economy still faces several long-term
challenges, including reliance on energy imports and foreign demand for
overseas Filipino workers,” Forbes said.
It added that it
determined the ranking of the Best Countries for Business by looking at
11 factors for 134 countries, such as property rights, innovation,
taxes, technology, corruption, freedom (personal, trade and monetary),
red tape, investor protection and stock-market performance.
Forbes said it used
research and published reports from the Central Intelligence Agency,
Freedom House, Heritage Foundation, Property Rights Alliance,
Transparency International, the World Bank and World Economic Forum to
compile the rankings.
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