Asia's Week: Filipinos Juggle Boom With Blow-Ups
If the Philippines really manages a 7% GDP growth rate for 2013, as forecast, it will likely continue to lead Asia unless China wants to keep pumping in stimulants. That accomplishment will set the onetime U.S. battleground apart from other recent stars such as Indonesia, which is having to come to grips with a failure of government policies to keep up with the investment interest of the last several years. Maybe because its uptick came later, Manila apparently has more running room left.
But that doesn’t make for smooth sailing for President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, who despite winning personal plaudits as a good democrat is at the helm of a still-leaky civic boat. That was obvious on at least two fronts this week.
The bloodier of them was in Zamboanga City in southernmost Mindanao, where the latest outbreak of long-standing hostilities with some factions of the indigenous Muslim population gripped widespread attention. It included a human hostage drama, in an area that itself has long been hostage to grinding poverty amid enormous mineral wealth. That itself is a familiar socio-tale in Southeast Asia, but in this case the juxtaposition of a Catholic-dominated central authority with Islamist agitation has made for especially explosive results. Short of a confederation that the various parties don’t seem up to, Aquino’s administration (and its tacit American allies) won’t likely find a peaceful bargain to be affordable no matter how prosperous the larger economy proves to be this year or next. Cease-fires may be the best we can hope for. If it comes down to heavier military suppression of the big island’s violent insurgents, then at some point Manila’s ability also to confront ever-more aggressive Chinese testing of South China Sea waters could be exhausted.
The second of Aquino’s agonies was a far cry from Islam: pork. Pork-barrel politics, to be specific, practiced on a scale in the Philippines that most other democracies young or old could only marvel at. This country’s variant involves its longstanding ruling families as the pass-throughs, and like most forms of graft, it is tolerated until it is not. Lately, as the riches of recent times have piled up in a few hands, and as Aquino (himself a legacy of the system) has spearheaded an anti-corruption drive, Filipinos reached a breaking point. Mass demonstrations have gone on for weeks and as late as late as Friday were cropping up in the capital. The poster abuse involved a well-connected businesswoman named Janet Lim Napoles, who is alleged to have cooked up a revenue sharing arrangement with some of the pols. But her special crime was having an indiscreet daughter who flaunted the family’s good fortune in incendiary ways (and apparently got some ceremonial time with the president himself).
Maybe this bout of indignation will lead to long-needed reforms (the Philippines continues to rank a low 105 out of 176 on the international Transparency Index, a corruption barometer) even as it singes much of the governing class in the process. (And maybe those two outcomes are necessarily related.) As positive as several of the economic omens may be–from gambling resorts to manufacturing, and especially entailing a large, young, English-speaking workforce–an orderly rule of law is going to be necessary for the nation to finally, and firmly, win emergence into the middle-income fraternity. Its challenges are hardly unique, but, as a function of geography and history, in few other spots are they as much in the world’s sights.
Asia's Week: Filipinos Juggle Boom With Blow-Ups - Forbes
Taiwan calls for more direct Philippine investments
September 15, 2013
Taipei City, Taiwan: Taiwan’s Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) is calling on more foreign investors, specifically those that are from the Philippines, to consider scouting for investment opportunities in its country.
CEPD is the government agency in Taiwan responsible for setting up plans for national economic development.
During the international press briefing on Taiwan’s participation in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), CEPD Director General Cheryl Tseng said that since Taiwan currently has a relatively low foreign-direct investments (FDIs) rate, it is now trying to encourage more foreign businessmen to invest in the country.
“So far, we’re trying to attract more FDI,” she said.
“All the investors are welcome whatever country they would come from, because every country do have their advantage and Philippines, especially, we are very close neighbors,” Tseng added.
She even mentioned that a lot of Taiwanese make a living in the Philippines, a sign of the close ties between the two countries.
“We have quite a lot of investments in the Philippines and a lot of Taiwanese are very successful in the Philippines,” the official further said.
Still in a bid to boost its FDIs, Tseng also said that Taiwan is also inviting investors from Vietnam and Indonesia.
Free-economic pilot zones
According to Tseng, the outlook on Taiwan’s FDI this year is still as not as “optimistic,” or is even lower than last year, but the country has been undertaking efforts to improve the inflow of foreign investments.
“The council just finished with the framework of the Free Economic Pilot Zone,” Tseng said, explaining that this could be part of the country’s initiative to establish a firmer international economic presence.
Free Economic Pilot Zones, a concept drafted by the CEPD, are “test beds” of Taiwan’s economic liberalization and internationalization.
In a CEPD research, it was described that the concept involves promotion of free movement of personnel, goods and funds in the country; opening markets to align with other countries, creation of a friendly tax environment; providing fast and easy land acquisition; and establishment of a prime environment for doing a business.
http://www.manilatimes.net/taiwan-calls-for-more-direct-philippine-investments/40085/
