The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
A hefty part of President Duterte’s unparalleled public investments on his watch will be devoted to infrastructure servicing the tourism industry in keeping with his goal of transforming this sector into one major engine of growth to sustain the Philippines’ momentum as one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies.
Finance Undersecretary Grace Karen Singson said that under the Duterte administration’s National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP), the Philippines will have to invest $23 billion in tourism infrastructure between now and 2022, when the President’s term ends, to make the sector “not only sustainable and highly competitive in the region but also socially responsible to propel inclusive growth.”
Singson said these proposed NTDP investments cover road networks, airports, cruise ports, railway, site infrastructure, tourism enterprise zones, transport units, accommodation facilities, and aircraft acquisition.
She said that under the NTDP, the government has targeted to build as much as 2,620 kilometers of tourism roads over the next six years, from a baseline of 900 kilometers, which will require an investment of $2 billion.
“As many renowned tourist sites in the Philippines, such as the Banaue Rice Terraces, the Chocolate Hills and Mt. Apo require long road travel, the Tourism Development Plan has also included the upgrading and construction of access roads to tourism sites and tourism development areas,” Singson said at the recent 11th Asean Finance Ministers’ Investor Seminar in Jakarta, Indonesia.
“Moreover, the high level of intra-Asean tourism,” which accounts for 47 percent of visitors’ origin, “provides the opportunity to harmonize Asean tourism quality and standards that could be a precursor to a certain ‘Asean brand’ that the region could roll out to the global tourism market,” Singson said.
“In the Philippines, we recognize the need to develop our tourism industry, as its importance to the Philippine Economy has grown. Tourism has become the third largest contributor to the Philippines’ GDP, after the trade and real estate Sectors. As GDP growth for the Philippines reached 5.2 percent in 2015, tourism accounted for 1.11 percentage points of the increase,” Singson said.
Singson said the government’s goal is to double the number of foreign tourist arrivals, increase tourism revenues by 90 percent and generate 14.4 percent of total Philippine jobs from the tourism sector by the time Mr. Duterte steps aside in 2022.