|
By Darwin G. Amojelar, Reporter
THE Philippines’ infrastructure gap is holding
back industrialization and job creation, the Asian Development Bank
(ADB) said.
The Manila-based lender said the causes of the
infrastructure bottleneck include low levels of public sector
revenue mobilization, poor prioritization in public spending, weak
institutions and regulatory failures.
The lender also said the country’s
underdeveloped financial systems do not encourage the flow of
long-term private capital into infrastructure projects.
A Development and Budget Coordinating Committee
(DBCC) document showed that investment as a share of the economy, as
measured by the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), would
average 20-percent for 2008 to 2010.
Under the Medium-Term Philippine Development
Plan for 2004 to 2010, the government aims at raising the
investment-to-GDP ratio to 28 percent in 2010 from 19 percent at the
start of the planning period.
The DBCC is the inter-agency body that sets the
country’s macroeconomic targets.
The document showed that national government
spending on infrastructure this year would amount to P79.36 billion.
Of this amount, the transport sector would receive P36.5 billion;
the power sector, P20.32 billion; water, P14.44 billion; social
infrastructure, P5.66 billion; information technology, P2.2 billion;
and property development, P214.2 billion.
For next year and 2010, the government plans to
spend about P64.26 billion and P71.45 billion, respectively, for
infrastructure alone.
These figures are lower than the P100 billion a
year target set in the economic blueprint.
The ADB said many countries in the region
continue to face an infrastructure deficit that is constraining
market-led growth and access to social services.
“Developing Asia and the Pacific needs to
improve infrastructure to realize its full growth potential, improve
public service delivery, and protect the environment,” the lender
said.
The ADB said developing countries in East Asia
need to invest more than $1 trillion over the next five years in
roads, water, communications, power, and other infrastructure to
cope with rapidly expanding cities, increasing populations, and the
growing demands of the private sector.
“Years of neglected infrastructure, investment
and maintenance has led to high levels of congestion and unsanitary
or otherwise unhealthy living conditions in Asia’s large cities.
The absence of well-planned rural, urban, and interconnected systems
of infrastructure is blocking private investment in many of the
region’s economies,” the ADB said.
|
