By Leslie D. Venzon
MANILA, Oct. 29 (PNA) — The Philippines will focus on efficient flow of services and people across border in the region to benefit fully from trade liberalization when it hosts the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit next year.
“…For the Philippines, we’re looking at services. As an economy, I think our people tend to gain more when there are opening of markets and so they can offer their services,” said Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Laura del Rosario said in a press briefing Wednesday in Malacañang.
Del Rosario said that apart from professionals, the Philippines is considering other services including logistics, infrastructure-related services like energy and information technology infrastructure, as well as physical infrastructure.
“They were also thinking in terms of where our people are most good at. They’re good, for instance, in accountancy services, advertising services, you know, medical services. So these are the other forms of connectivity that are being taken on in APEC,” she said.
Del Rosario stressed that the Philippines will also be focusing on improving access to finance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), access to technology and access to better human resources during its APEC host year.
“I think we all know that for us to improve our own competitiveness, we have to improve our human capital,” she said.
Del Rosario underscored the need for the country to develop its own cooperation projects and program designed to improve training of people.
“So that we won’t have any mismatch — jobs mismatch, so to speak,” she added. (PNA)