An expert sees the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) a win for the Philippines on digital economy owing to the strong support of its business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.
Gregory Poling, director and senior fellow of Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a forum the Philippines can also be ahead in the supply chain in some sectors in manufacturing in the IPEF.
“The Philippines is far ahead … (it has) the most open digital economy behind Singapore. It is head and shoulders above Indonesia, Vietnam, and it is leading Malaysia and Thailand, when it comes to online regulatory standards that are attractive to US, Japanese and Korean companies in particular,” said Poling in the forum organized by the Makati Business Club and the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.
“It’s got booming BPO sector and a wide open digital economy, unlike almost any of the partners,” Poling added.
He said with the new amendment to the Public Service Act, “there’s a significant opening here… where the Philippine economy is far more open on telecoms and digital trade….”
“Clearly, the thriving BPO sector among others…makes greater market access abroad and greater regulatory coherence,” Poling added.
The Philippines, he said, has established a comparative advantage in some high technology industries like electronics, vaccines and health care, personal protective equipment and materials, rare earth among others such as the country could benefit from a diversion of some of the supply chains from China.
“The Philippines is pretty well placed to get a piece of this pie,” he added. – Irma Isip
