‘Investments, better infra to sustain RP growth’
MANILA – Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said the continued higher-than-expected growth of the domestic economy can be sustained through the government’s bid to encourage entry of more investments and infrastructure projects.
The domestic economy again surpassed expectations after this year’s second quarter output reached 7.9 percent, higher than the revised 7.8 percent in the previous quarter and the 1.2 percent year-ago.
This is also far higher than the 5.9-6.9 percent projection of the National Economic and Development Authority for the quarter.
Purisima hopes to sustain these numbers once the projects identified to be included in the public-private partnership (PPP) initiative of the administration are implemented.
“They key is sustaining this, not hitting it once, and sustaining it over a long period of time,” he said.
Purisima said that aside from red tape, corruption and credibility of the administration the other major reason why growth of the domestic economy was not sustained is because it is purely driven by consumption.
“We’re missing the other leg which is on investment and that’s very important. That’s what we’re trying to trigger with our PPP initiative,” he said.
The Aquino administration’s PPP initiative aims to increase private investments in infrastructure to ensure long-term growth of the economy.
Aside from the PPP initiative, the government has started its anti-tax evader drive to ensure that revenues due to the government will be collected.
To date, the Department of Finance along with the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs already filed five tax-evasion case and four anti-smuggling case before the Department of Justice.
Purisima said filing of these cases aims to broaden the government’s tax collection foundation.
“It takes a while but I think over a period of two to three years, we will see the real impact of everything that we’re doing. Not only the RATE, RATS and RIPS cases but more importantly, the institutional changes we’re doing,” he added.*PNA
