Raising the alarm vs import dependence

Rolando Narciso, a steel industry veteran who led the government-owned National Steel Corp. (NSC) from 1989 to 1995 and was also the president and chief operating officer of Steel Corp. of the Philippines from 1998 to 2000, and is currently an independent director at Wilcon Depot, Inc., is raising the alarm against the country's increasing reliance on imports for almost all of our needs.

- MARIANNE GO

In an open letter, Narciso expressed concern over the term "extreme import dependence" to describe the state of the Philippine economy and his fear of "the dangers that lurk along the trail up ahead."

He warns that as "we turn to foreign sources, instead of local sources to fill our supply chains for finished goods, we are in effect converting many controllable factors therein to uncontrollable ones," noting that "these uncontrollable factors better be foreseeable in order to have enough time to cushion their possible adverse effects when they inevitably arise."

He asks, "In a world that is progressively in turmoil and constantly in crisis (such as natural calamities, trade wars, military conflicts, geopolitical tensions, territorial disputes, cross-border migrations, pandemics, exchange rate fluctuations), is import dependence a prudent economic policy for a country aspiring for continuous growth and progress for its ever-rising, but poverty-mired population? If the answer is in the negative, then all the more so for extreme import dependence — which unfortunately is where we are today."

He points out that our main sources of foreign exchange are OFW remittances, BPO business revenues and electronics re-export, "which are also our vulnerabilities to global upheavals, since these volatile inflows are a major source of funds for payment of our gigantic import bills."