Meeting of business groups, foreign chambers to tackle downgrade
August 12, 2011 at 02:16
This is an article repost.
BUSINESS GROUPS could meet this month in an attempt to gauge the outlook for the remainder of the year amid fears of another global crisis.
“We are planning to set up a meeting with MBC (Makati Business Club), PhilExport (Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc.), the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP), AmCham (American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines), and other business groups so we can all make sense of the downgrade together with economists,” Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) President Felino A. Palafox, Jr. told BusinessWorld yesterday.
“The initiative only started … [yesterday] when members of the association expressed concern over the situation. We hope to have the meeting two weeks from now,” he added.
“Nobody really understands the situation yet.”
Foreign chamber representatives said reforms had to be fast-tracked to prepare the economy from a possible spillover effect of a crisis arising from the United States’ and the eurozone’s debt woes.
“The lesson for the Philippines is that it must accelerate to create high growth opportunities here, through leveling the playing field, improving the investment climate and thus be less dependent on growth in the US, China or elsewhere as well as on overseas worker remittances,” AmCham executive director Jeffrey Woodruff said on Tuesday.
ECCP President Hubert D’Aboville, meanwhile, said: “The Philippines needs to look for new markets rather than be exclusively focused on the other side of the Pacific. We should diversify and look west to Europe…”
“[I]nvestments will come and create jobs if, and only if, trust exists, and trust is based on long-term policies and clear directions. Policy environment has to be stable,” he added.
Standard & Poor’s decision last week to downgrade the United States’ triple-A credit rating sent global markets tumbling as investors worried that the US’ debt woes, coupled with continued problems in the eurozone, would trigger a new global downturn.
In the Philippines, economic managers are now reviewing growth targets since current assumptions of the economy have been challenged by the US downgrade.
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Source: Business World, Aug. 12, 2011
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