Economic managers will start meeting with business groups to clarify President Duterte’s recent policy pronouncements on foreign relations and investments, with Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III holding the initial round of dialogue with members of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) on Saturday.
AmCham Executive Director Ebb Hincheliffe confirmed to the BusinessMirror that they will be meeting with Dominguez this weekend, to be apprised of the impact of Duterte’s anti-American rhetoric on matters of commerce.
“[The matters] will be all business and trade, statements made like the economic separation and for businessmen to ‘pack up and leave’, are two examples,” Hincheliffe said in a text message.
The group of American firms in the country requested the meeting.
Dominguez, in a news conference in Malacañang early on Wednesday, spoke of an upcoming meeting with the AmCham in light of the unabated anti-US statements that the President has been making.
Just last week, Duterte challenged foreign businesses concerned over the drug war to pack up and leave, prompting alarm among foreign business chambers and industry associations.
Duterte’s challenge was made in response to a US State Department official’s statement that his comment on “economic separation with the US” was worrying American investors and businessmen.
The Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), representing the $ 22-billion industry, also sought an immediate meeting with the President following these comments, as more than 70 percent of the outsourcing work done by Filipino BPO workers are from the US market.
The association is similarly seeking an audience with the President, but is yet to be given a spot in his schedule. This was confirmed by IBPAP Trustee Catherine Salceda-Ileto. Dominguez said they would also engage other business groups concerned during the Philippine Development Forum set in Davao next week.
The six key subsectors under the information technology and business -process management (IT-BPM) sector foresee solid growth until 2022, according to the IT-BPM Roadmap 2022.
The different segments of the $22-billion IT-BPM sector charted their growth trajectories as part of the crafting of the Roadmap 2016 – 2022, all with healthy outlooks in the next six years.
The six subsectors include animation, contact centers, shared-service captives, game development, health-information management and software development.
Juan Miguel del Rosario, president of the Animation Council of the Philippines, sees his segment growing by at least 18 percent from 2016 to 2022, with employment jumping by more than 14 percent. The subsegment’s worth is estimated at $26.4 million this year.
Del Rosario said to achieve these goals, support must come from the government in terms of incentives for animation development and allocation of more resources for promotion, among other activities.
Speaking for the largest segment of the IT-BPM sector, Jojo Uligan of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines said the industry will grow by double digits, with a compounded average growth rate of 7 percent to 8 percent from 2016 to 2022. “It’s still an exciting and positive growth. But it’s no longer the 15-percent growth; it’s some 10 percent year-over-year, because of a larger base,” Uligan said.
Employment of the contact-center industry—currently at 750,000—is seen to balloon to 1.1 million in six years.
This growth is hinged on the upgrading of human-capital resources and infrastructure development to allow the creation of more contact-center hubs outside Metro Manila.
The shared services subsector, meanwhile, is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 8.4 percent, or from an estimated $ 4.7 billion in revenues as of end-2016 to $ 7.6 billion.
For game development, growth is pegged at 13.5 percent over the next six years, which is just a conservative number, according to Game Development Association of the Philippines President Alvin Juban.
The fastest-growing segment today, the health information and management services, can double its revenues from $2.4 billion in 2016 to $5 billion by 2022, and employment jumping from 180,000 to 200,000. This can be achieved by leveling up in specialization of services, such as telehealth and clinical analytics.
Finally, the software IT-BPM subindustry could grow from $2.97 billion in 2016 to $5.7 billion, and from 123,000 work force to a headcount of 200,000, said Philippine Software Industry Association Vice President Winston Cruz.
The entire IT-BPM industry is seen to be worth $ 38.9 billion by 2022, from $22 billion this year, with employment generated at 1.8 million.