NEDA approves 6-year Philippine Development Plan plan

CEBU, Philippines - The National Economic and Development Authority Board finally approved the 2017-2022 Philippine Development Plan, the Duterte government’s economic roadmap in the next six years. 

Based on the new PDP, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to strengthen at 7-8 percent in the medium term.  Growth is also expected to be more inclusive, where overall poverty rate is targeted to decline from 21.6 percent to 14 percent, and poverty incidence in rural areas to decrease from 30 percent in 2015 to 20 percent in 2022.

The PDP also targets to reduce unemployment rate from the current 5.5 percent to 3-5 percent by 2022. Included among the targets, also, are higher trust in government and society, more resilient individuals and communities, and a greater drive for innovation.

“We want the Philippines to be an upper-middle income country by 2022. With the right policies and with mutual trust between government and the citizenry, this is very possible,” said Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said in a statement yesterday. 

The Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2017-2022 is the first medium-term plan to be anchored on a national long-term vision.

PDP 2017-2022 is anchored on three main pillars. First is Malasakit, which aims to regain people’s trust in public institutions and cultivate trust among fellow Filipinos. Second is Pagbabago, or inequality-reducing transformation through increasing opportunities for growth of output and income. Third, Patuloy na Pag-unlad concentrates on increasing potential growth through sustaining and accelerating economic growth by maximizing the demographic dividend and vigorously advancing science, technology and innovation.

Strategies under this pillar will ensure maintaining macroeconomic and financial stability, and observing fiscal prudence while the tax system is being reformed into a much simpler, fair and equitable one.

According to NEDA, “a strategic trade policy will also be implemented alongside measures to promote competition and establish a level playing field.”

Meanwhile, under these three pillars lie four cross-cutting bedrock strategies, which are attaining just and lasting peace, ensuring security, public order and safety, accelerating strategic infrastructure development, and ensuring ecological integrity and a clean and healthy environment.

Furthermore, the PDP 2017-2022 also espouses a National Spatial Strategy which recognizes that population, geography, and cities are engines of economic growth. The NSS was adopted to identify specific strategies and policies in order to decongest Metro Manila, connect rural areas to key growth areas, and to improve linkages between settlements for higher resilience against natural disasters.

The PDP also gives special attention to Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and their families. It identifies strategies and policies that will work to protect the rights of overseas Filipinos, improve their quality of life, and integrate them into the country’s development.

In an earlier interview with Denmark's ambassador to the Philippines Jan Top Christensen, he underscored the present administration's "progress and future-oriented" socioeconomic agenda.

"[It seeks] to move up further economic development, address poverty reduction, fight corruption and create more development in provinces. That makes sense — a lot of sense," the Danish envoy said. (FREEMAN)