THE government should recalibrate the national development plan so that the country will depend less on agricultural imports, the head of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has asserted.
PCCI President George T. Barcelon stressed the need to recalibrate the national development plan and focus on Agriculture since a huge chunk of agricultural products relies on importation.
He also noted that with the devaluation of the Philippine peso, which he described as a “bit of concern” for weakening by 6 percent in just the span of three months, the country should leverage its resources.
“So this is the time wherein ang meron sa atin kayamanan natin meron tayong lupa meron tayong tao [our wealth includes land and our people], and we should use those to our advantage,” Barcelon said in a televised interview on Friday.
The “net gain,” he added, should not be limited to “just because the exchange rate is high that we cannot live with it,” the PCCI chief added. He recalled the events of 2005, when interest rates were also high, but the country was able to recover.
However, Barcelon underscored the importance of having a “game plan” to sustain the country’s economy.
With this, the PCCI chief emphasized the need to recast the “priority for development” in a situation where the interest rate and exchange rate are high, adding the need to have a “game book . . . .for the sustainability of the economy.”
Barcelon stressed that the situation of soaring interest rates is hard to deal with as it would “suffocate the industry.”
As for the impact of a declining peso, the PCCI chief noted that the cost will be passed on to the consumer, who will experience weakening purchasing power.
He said it’s but “natural” for the cost to be passed over to the consumer, very similar to the situation when sugar prices soared and pan de sal sizes shrank, “so, our peso will not buy as much as before.”
He added that import cost of fertilizer, for instance, will also increase.
Sources of hope
Still, the private sector representative remained optimistic moving forward, saying he is pinning his hopes on the Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) remittances, the country’s exporters and the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.
“Moving forward I still believe that hopefully by ‘ber months, there will be more remittances from OFWs.” He believes that if the exchange rate could just be kept at “58 not going any further, that should allow us to have a more relaxed Christmas season.”
He thinks the effect of increasing OFW remittances, and better bottomlines for exporters and BPOs, the country’s dollar earners, would counterbalance the expected headwinds. “So there’s a balancing act that must be achieved,” Barcelon added.
The local currency has hit its “record high” level against the US dollar nine times this month alone: on September 2 at P56.77 to a dollar; on September 5 at P56.99 to a dollar; on September 6 at P57 to a dollar; on September 8 at P57.18 to a dollar; on September 16 at P57.43 to a dollar; on September 20 at P57.48 to a dollar; on September 21 at P58 to a dollar; and on September 22 at P58.49 to a dollar.