CLARK FREEPORT – The issue of decongesting Metro Manila and breeding “new wealth” in other parts of the country, particularly in this freeport and nearby provinces, has cropped up at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here.
APEC Business Advisory Council Chair Doris Magsaysay Ho expressed her full support to the proposal of the business sector to decongest Metro Manila as a means of attaining “inclusive growth” nationwide. “We need to grow wealth around the country.
Manila is not the only place in this country. We need to grow wealth in different production hubs not just Clark but there’s a whole corridor here we have Pampanga, Tarlac, and all the way to Subic. Why is it great? Because you have an airport and a seaport,”
Ho said in an interview during the first APEC Public Private Dialogue (PPD) on services at the Fontana resort here.“I encourage all stakeholders- from the local government units, national agencies, to private sector to promote this corridor together because it has so much potential but let’s become great producers, great manufacturers, great agricultural processors so that we create trade,” Ho stressed.
The APEC information office said the PPD held here the other day was “the first of a series of dialogues on servicesenvisioned to guide APEC’s public and private stakeholders in examining developments, challenges, and opportunities for the sector; identifying new strategies for building the full potential of the sector; generating policy options towards removing barrier to services trade; developing an innovative approach in pursuing the services agenda of APEC; and fostering collaboration and best practice exchanges to promote services growth.”
The second PPD will be held in Boracay during the APEC’s 2nd Senior Officials’ Meeting and shall center on manufacturing- related services. These would lead up to the first Regional Conference of Services Coalitions and Services Industries in Cebu, which is among the highlights of the Third Senior Officials’ Meeting, said the APEC information office.
“The most important part is always to have the talent available. Asyou go up the ladder of services, we need to see what the future person is going to be. Right now our strength is English but one day maybe our strength should be Spanish, should be Chinese, should be French that’s one,” Ho said.
Ho said “let us be good in Math and learn it all the way up so we can go higher up the ladder. And then eventually we can translate those services into much more complex systems such as programming development, honing the Information technology.”
