Stability, infrastructure spending among top priorities to achieve 7 pct economic growth: Philippine budget chief

The Philippine government has to improve on five things in order to sustain a 7-percent growth rate, a senior government official said Tuesday.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said in a news briefing in Malacanang, the presidential palace, underscored the importance of maintaining peace and order, improving infrastructure spending, investing in the human resources, cutting the cost of doing business, and having a competitive tax system.

"Of course, the peace and order is a precondition to growth. So that's a given," he said.

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered an all-out war against illegal drugs.

Diokno acknowledged that the Philippines has the worst infrastructure. This was the reason why the Duterte administration has allotted huge budget for infrastructure in the 2017 budget, he said.

"So for example if you look at the 2017 budget, 5.4 percent of GDP will go to public infrastructure. That has never been done before in the history of the country," he said.

He said the Duterte government intends to ramp up the budget for public infrastructure to up to 7.4 percent of GDP or 8 trillion to 9 trillion pesos (160.74 billion to 180.83 U.S. dollars) by 2022, end of the current administration.

The budget chief said the government also needs to convert the youth into "a productive, agile, health workforce" and to cut the cost of doing business in order to attract foreign investors.

The Philippine economy grew by 7.1 percent in the third quarter of 2016. The government has yet to release the full-year GDP growth for last year. It targeted 6-7 percent economic growth in 2016.

For this year, the Duterte administration is eyeing 6.5-7.5 percent GDP expansion. Endit