DTI: Industrialization creates more jobs, reduces importation

MANILA – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) stated that the country can rely on the manufacturing and agricultural industries to create jobs and reduce the trade deficit.

In a virtual meeting on Monday, Secretary Alfredo Pascual told the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce, and Entrepreneurship that industrialization is the only way for the country to have a sustainable and inclusive economy.

He specifically mentioned manufacturing as an industry where Filipinos can find stable and high-paying jobs.

“Unless we do that, we should forever be holding to the inflows from OFWs [overseas Filipino workers]. We’ll be sending more people abroad to earn the dollar so we can do the importation here. That’s not sustainable,” Pascual said.

The DTI, he said, is trying to urge local enterprises to introduce consumer goods, like processed food products which the country still imports.

“That was the answer I was hoping for, actually. So, I think we’re on the right track when we say that we want to have higher value paying jobs,” Senator Sonny Angara told Pascual, who discussed the agency’s priority agenda and plans to address trade deficit.

A trade deficit happens when a country spends more on imports than it earns in exports.

According to Pascual, the country produces agricultural products that can undergo further processing, like cacao, coffee, bamboo, and fiber.

“One of the strategies we’re adapting is to create industry clusters,” he said.

Pascual stated that the Philippines supplies 20 percent of coffee requirement while importing the remaining 80 percent.

He also mentioned banana plantations, where workers do not earn as much as those who work in banana processing and manufacturing enterprises.

Pascual advised that DTI must be left alone handling the products that are being processed without the intervention of the Department of Agriculture in order to create industry clusters and improve the manufacturing industry

“These are agricultural products but they can go further for processing to meet domestic demand and also be able to tap the export market. Either we get full operation from the Department of Agriculture or we just take care of the farmers in producing these crops or improving the quality of these agriculture products,” Pascual explained.