The chairman of the House appropriations committee on Monday committed to look for ways to augment the budget for the Department of Trade and Industry, the country’s main investment promotion agency, whose proposed 2024 spending plan pends at House of Representatives.
The planned cut comes at a time when industry as contributor to local output growth has dropped sharply to only 2.1 percent in the second quarter this year from 4 percent in 1Q. Overall growth itself, measured as the gross domestic product (GDP), missed expectations during the period and expanded by only 4.3 percent instead of 6 percent as expected.
In other words, the economy needs as much support as its could muster, even from government whose various agencies have vowed to accelerate spending to optimize the output or growth potential this year.
It was in this vein that Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and National Economic Development Authority director general Arseno Balisacan said achieving this year growth target of 6 percent to 7 percent remains achievable provided output expansion averages 6.7 percent in the second half.
“If we are really serious in generating more investments and creating better-paying jobs for our people, Congress must ensure that DTI and its attached agencies have the resources to its do work properly.”
AKO Bicol Party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations
“We also have to spend more to develop the products we export as well as train Filipinos to be entrepreneurs; to be job creators, not seekers. If we could do this, we could prevent our people from voting with their feet.”
At the budget hearing last week, DTI Secretary Alfredo Pascual lamented the decision of the Department of Budget and Management to set the agency’s expenditure program next year to P7.91 billion, an increase from the spending plan this year but just a third of the DTI’s original budget proposal of P21.03 billion for 2024.
The Office of the Secretary and the Board of Investments were among the biggest losers in the national expenditure program for 2024. DBM cut the Office of the Secretary’s budget to P5.32 billion from the proposed P12.61 billion while the allocation for the BOI was reduced to P659 million from the agency’s proposed P1.85 billion.
Data comparing DTI’s proposal and the budget DBM submitted to Congress also showed reductions in spending for development projects for industry, and for micro, small and medium enterprises, consumer protection program, Malikhaing Pinoy and establishment of Negosyo Centers.
Pascual said programs designed by DTI to better prepare the economy for newer technologies like artificial intelligence were also left unfunded in the 2024 national expenditure program.
Many lawmakers share Co’s sentiment and pledged support to find ways to supplement, if not increase, DTI’s budget, its attached agencies and its various investment-promotion and job-creation programs.
Marikina City Rep. Stella Quimbo, a senior vice chairman of the appropriations committee, said the need to provide more financial support for DTI and its programs is highlighted by the slowdown in gross domestic product growth to 4.3 percent in the second quarter from 6.4 percent in the first quarter.
