Philippines needs to tackle constraints to growth, poverty reduction - ADB

from Forbes

MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Philippines needs to identify the most critical factors that constrain growth and poverty reduction in order to sustain the current pace of growth or even accelerate it.

The bank said critical constraints to growth include tight fiscal situation, inadequate infrastructure, weak investor confidence due to governance concerns, in particular, corruption and political instability, and the inability to address market failures leading to a small and narrow industrial base.

Critical constraints to poverty reduction include lack and slow growth of productive employment opportunities, inequitable access to development opportunities, especially education, health, infrastructure, and productive assets and inadequate social protection and social safety nets.

Removing these three constraints will result in increased private investments from domestic and foreign sources, the agency said. The government will also need to address the market failures in order to encourage investments in diversifying and expanding the manufacturing sector and exports, and in upgrading the level of technology, the ADB added.