Filipino chief executives are the most optimistic about revenue generation among top businessmen in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers said Monday.
About 51 percent of top business executives in the country expressed confidence in terms of revenue growth prospects over the next 12 months, the highest among the 21 member-economies of Apec, according to the results of the Apec CEO Survey 2015.
“The uniqueness in the Philippines is that it is the only economy that really feels that there is really a bright future so far as revenue is concerned. The Philippines is really distinctive in that category,” said PwC Philippines chairman Alexander Cabrera.
This compares with 34 percent in the US and 20 percent in China.
“Moreover, 68 percent of the CEOs believe that investments will increase in the country, while only 6 percent think it will decrease over the next 12 months,” Cabrera said
Meanwhile, Apec 2015 CEO Summit chairman Tony Tan Caktiong said the CEO Summit would discuss how to integrate micro and smaller businesses into the inclusive business agenda that the Philippines espoused during the year-long conference.
“This year’s Apec CEO Summit will highlight for the first time the issue on ‘inclusiveness’ as one of top agenda pushed by the Philippines that aims to empower and globalize the micro, small and medium enterprises by involving them in the supply chain and value chains of many big businesses,” said Tan Caktiong.
“The Apec gathering is one opportunity event for the Philippines to introduce itself to the world again in a big way by pushing for strategic initiatives that could be the first of its kind,” said Tan Caktiong, chairman of Jollibee Foods Corp.
He said Jollibee itself put into operation Jollibee’s farmer entrepreneurship program, involving small onion farmers in the supply chain, providing these small entrepreneurs a sustainable livelihood.
Tan Caktiong said “it takes a radical change in mindsets as even our procurement people find this extremely difficult to implement.”
Meanwhile, another development in the discussion is the adoption of disaster risk reduction framework by the Apec Business Advisory Council, as introduced by the Philippines during the Apec senior disaster management officials’ forum in Iloilo City.
The framework aims to develop climate-proof, resilient and sustainable communities, as Apec member countries are located along the Pacific Ring of Fire that are vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis.
Data show that Apec’s combined GDP doubled from $16 trillion in 1989 to $31 trillion in 2013, and accounted for 57 percent of world GDP and 47 percent of world trade in 2012.
“The main reason for this is the steady reduction in trade barriers and tedious regulations,” said Apec 2015 CEO Summit chief operating officer Guillermo Luz.
Luz cited Apec statistics showing that average tariffs fell from 17 percent in 1989 to 5.2 percent in 2012, boosting Apec’s total trade to increase over seven times to $22 trillion between 1989 and 2013, while the rest of the world grew by only 5.4 times during the same period. With Othel V. Campos
