The Department of Finance has proposed for the Philippines and Japan to enter into a demographic partnership to further boost the post-pandemic growth of their respective economies.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez reiterated this proposal in an informal meeting with Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki on the sidelines of the recent World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings.
According to a statement released yesterday, Dominguez said this partnership is now more feasible with the recent enactment of three Philippine laws that further liberalized the economy and opened wide the country to foreign investors.
These laws are the amendatory measures to the Public Service Act, Foreign Investments Act and Retail Trade Liberalization Act which all relaxed the restrictions on foreign ownership in certain Philippine businesses.
Under this demographic partnership, Dominguez said Japan will provide the research, technology and resources, while the Philippines will do the marketing and manufacturing side by lending the skills of its young, talented workforce to this proposed new era of economic cooperation between the two countries.
In his meeting with Suzuki, Dominguez also thanked anew the government and people of Japan for their support in the Build, Build, Build program and other development initiatives as well as for their donation of three million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
Meanwhile, Dominguez and Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati also met and discussed the effects of the pandemic on their respective countries, particularly on basic education, the budget deficit and national debt as well as the impact of the protracted Russia-Ukraine conflict on the already rising costs of food and fuel.
Dominguez also informed Mulyani about how the Philippines has been able to increase its revenue collections from so-called “sin” products by imposing higher taxes on cigarettes and successfully implementing a tax on sugary beverages.
Indonesia has long been planning to impose a tax on sugary beverages. Dominguez said the sugar-sweetened beverage tax has earned the Philippine government an average of $2 million a day.
They also discussed how the two countries have been recovering from the pandemic, but are now saddled with the negative impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis on inflation and on their respective fiscal resources.
