As-delivered Statement of NEDA Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan at the Philippine Economic Briefing in Toronto

Parliament of Canada Members Rechie Valdez and Salma Zahid,
Esteemed members of the business community,
Our very energetic Ambassador Andrelita Austria,
My fellow government officials and colleagues, to all of our guests, good morning!
I am pleased to join the Marcos Administration’s first-ever economic briefing in Canada’s diverse, welcoming, and thriving state. There is much great news regarding recent developments in the Philippines, as you have heard from my colleagues, and please allow me this time to provide an overview of our government’s socioeconomic agenda, focusing on infrastructure development and investment policy, in particular.
First, a brief insight into the country’s recent economic performance:
As my colleagues have mentioned, the Philippines has sustained comparatively remarkable growth over the past decade, with the country’s GDP growth posting mostly between 6% to 7% a year since 2010. While this was interrupted by numerous challenges faced during the height of the pandemic, our economy demonstrated resilience and strong recovery as we reached a full-year growth of 7.6% last year, surpassing the government’s official target of 6.5% to 7.5% for 2022. The first quarter of 2023, as you have also heard, also delivered good news, as the economy maintained its high growth at 6.4%.
As my colleague Secretary Diokno noted, several multilateral institutions have also projected the Philippines to outpace many regional peers amid external challenges. These projections are within the Economic Team’s growth target of 6.0% to 7.0% for 2023. In the coming years, we aim to do better – we have raised the growth target range to 6.5% to 8.0% from 2024 to 2028 in an ambitious but realizable push to transform the economy and reduce poverty significantly.
President Marcos’ development blueprint for the medium term is anchored on his socioeconomic agenda of addressing the short-term adjustment issues and long-term constraints to job creation and poverty reduction. This development blueprint, also known as the Philippine Development Plan or PDP 2023-2028, contains the priority strategies, programs, and legislative measures that we commit to implement for the country to create more and higher-quality jobs and rapidly reduce poverty.
Among the main strategies outlined in the PDP is to expand and upgrade the country’s infrastructure. The Marcos Administration recognizes this as a critical component of its development strategy to catch up and become more competitive relative to its dynamic neighbors in Southeast Asia. For this reason, the Philippine government has marked infrastructure development among its critical interventions for the medium term.
The Marcos Administration has committed to sustaining annual spending on infrastructure at around 5% to 6% of GDP from 2023 to 2028 – equivalent to about 20 to 40 billion US dollars per year. We will deliver on the fundamentals: expressways, bridges, airports, railways, ports, energy, irrigation, flood management, telecommunications, and logistics, to reduce the cost and risks of doing business, expand markets and multiply economic opportunities, and encourage job creation and innovation. We intend to invest much in our backbone infrastructure to solve the numerous gaps investors have observed over the years.
In addition, we have been working earnestly toward creating an enabling regulatory and policy environment for the investor community. We are building on the reform initiatives of the past administrations to deepen improvements in the country’s investment climate. Our efforts have started to bear fruits, as seen in the determined implementation of game-changing laws and enhanced transparency, predictability, and efficiency of business processes to address investor concerns. Of course, these reforms and policies are only a preview of what is to come: more reforms are on the way to improve the country’s investment climate.
The Marcos Administration’s 194 Infrastructure Flagship Projects, or IFPs, headline the Build-Better-More Infrastructure Program. These projects, collectively worth about 150 billion US dollars, are concentrated in physical and digital connectivity and water resources – an indication of our serious commitment to upgrading the country’s growth fundamentals. Notably, 93, or close to half of these IFPs, are ongoing and approved for implementation, while 92 are undergoing project preparation and pre-project preparation activities.
As for funding, we are tapping into diverse sources to finance these IFPs. More than half are expected to be funded by Official Development Assistance or ODA, while about 30% are expected to be financed through Public-Private Partnerships or PPPs and combinations thereof.
Indeed, the private sector is an invaluable partner in realizing the country’s socioeconomic agenda. This sector is the country’s driver of growth and innovation, financial resources, and technical and managerial capacities. Its involvement in public sector projects will ultimately result in better public services, lower consumer prices, and improved quality of life for all Filipinos.
The Marcos administration promotes PPPs as a mode of financing IFPs and other high-impact development projects. The country has awarded 225 projects worth about USD 47 billion to date. In the pipeline for PPP implementation are 107 projects with an investment requirement of about USD 41 billion. More are being identified and evaluated for possible inclusion in the list.
To complement connectivity infrastructure development, we will also make critical investments in our social sector, particularly health, education, and social protection, so as to raise the productivity of our growing workforce. This is critically important as the country has started its demographic transition creating so-called “demographic sweet spot,” in which our young and dynamic working population is growing faster than the overall population. By sustaining the improvement in this particular productivity of our labor force, we can support our economy’s growth in the coming years.
Now, allow me to conclude by emphasizing a few key points on why the Philippines makes a good choice for investors or investments:
For one, we are home to a huge consumer base of over 110 million people who are part of an economy sustaining high growth. By 2025, we expect the Philippines to reach an upper-middle-income country status, meaning sustained increases in the demand for goods and services.
Second, the Philippines can be your competitive launching pad for the ASEAN market and our trading partners under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or RCEP. This effectively multiplies your market size and gives you competitive access to inputs and value chains.
Third, the country’s “demographic dividend” or what I called earlier as “demographic sweet spot,” serves as an additional pillar of growth for the next two to three decades – an enticing prospect considering the aging population in developed economies like here in Canada.
I end by inviting all of you to consider partnering with the Philippines. Our country is more open to business now than ever before. Investment opportunities, especially in PPPs, exist in key infrastructure areas such as I said earlier, energy, water, airports, logistics, telecommunications, expressways, railways, hospitals, and schools. We also invite you to explore exciting opportunities in our emerging growth drivers: agribusiness, mining, manufacturing, tourism, education, the creative industries, health, information technology, and business process management.
Rest assured that the Philippine government will be your active and committed partner. We look forward to working with you in creating a more prosperous, inclusive, and resilient Philippines.
Thank you all again, and good day to all. Mabuhay!
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