Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Duterte administration is investing heavily in human capital development to train its young, talented work force and capitalize on the Philippines’s “demographic sweet spot”, which he describes as the Philippines’s comparative advantage in competing with Asia’s tiger economies.
Dominguez urged potential investors gathered in this year’s Deutsche Bank Access (dbAccess) Philippines Conference to “profit from the newfound dynamism” under the Philippines’s fast-growing economy as the Duterte administration continues to implement reforms to ensure a business environment conducive to sustaining the growth momentum.
He said the government’s massive investments in education, training and research, as well as in health care and other social services, will be supported in part by the first phase of the Duterte administration’s proposed tax-reform program, which is expected to be approved by Congress later this year.
“One of the least-mentioned advantages of the Philippines is that we have a very young and talented work force. This is an asset in a region with aging work forces. Over the next few years, we expect to hit a demographic sweet spot,” Dominguez said at the opening of the 2017 dbAccess Philippines Conference.
He said this large number of young employable Filipinos is, at the same time, a challenge for the economy “to expand quickly enough and draw larger volumes of investments” to create the jobs needed for the new entrants into the country’s labor force.
“We are investing heavily in training young Filipinos to be more competitive in the new global economy. We understand that this young work force will be our economy’s comparative advantage long into the future. That young and talented work force produces complementarities with the other economies of the region,” Dominguez added at the event held at a hotel in Makati City.
Besides allowing the government to increase spending on human capital development, Dominguez said reforming the tax system will also enable it to invest massively in infrastructure without compromising the country’s fiscal position.
The Duterte administration, Dominguez said, is planning to spend $20 billion each year through the medium term to build its urgently needed infrastructure.
“I invite the investment community to take a hard look at the emerging opportunities in our fast-growing economy. Partner with us.
Invest in the growth. Profit from the newfound dynamism. Be part of Asia’s newest tiger economy,” Dominguez told participants at the dbAccess Conference.