THE Philippines’ overall competitiveness ranking in 2016-2017 went down by 10 notches to 57th from 47th out of 144 countries due to corruption and lack of infrastructure, according to a report released by the World Economic Forum.
The WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report or GCR shows that, from 2012 to 2017, corruption, inefficient government bureaucracy and inadequate supply of infrastructure had become “constant problematic issues in doing business in the Philippines.”
The Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department of the House of Representatives came out with the WEF report to guide lawmakers in policy making.
The WEF defines competitiveness as “the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine a country’s productivity which, in turn, sets the level of prosperity that the country can achieve.”
The WEF says productivity levels determine the return on investments in an economy and are also the fundamental drivers of a country’s growth rates.
Compared to its neighboring Asean member-states, the WEF says, the Philippines’ ranking in the 2016-2017 GCR is lower than Malaysia’s, Thailand’s, Indonesia’s, Vietnam’s and Singapore’s but higher than Cambodia’s.
“When compared to the 2015-2016 GCR, the countries that managed to improve their rankings included Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam. On the other hand, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines all registered lower rankings in the 2016-2017 Report,” the WEF report says.
Singapore retained its overall ranking of second, the report says.
In 2012-2013 the Philippines ranked 65th, went up to 59th in 2013-2014, improved further to 52nd in 2014-2015, and went down 10 notches to 57th in 2016 from 47th in 2015.
The WEF report showing the overall global competitiveness index that determines individual country rankings is based on three sub-indices: basic requirements, efficiency enhancers and innovation and sophistication factors, each critical to a particular stage of development.
The WEF says under the three sub-indices are the 12 pillars of competitiveness: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.
For the 2016-2017 GCR, the WEF says, the Philippines registered declines in rankings in nine out of 12 pillars, which include institutions (by 14 notches), infrastructure (by five notches), good market efficiency (by 19 notches), labor market efficiency (by four notches), technological readiness (by 15 notches), and market size (by one notch).
“For the 2016-2017 report, 18.8 of the respondents cited the inefficient government bureaucracy as the most problematic factor for doing business in the Philippines,” the WEF said.
“This is followed by inadequate supply of infrastructure (17.8 percent), corruption (16.9 percent), the tax rate (10.8 percent), and tax regulations (8.3 percent),” the forum says.