The Philippines economic plan is following the path of nations such as India and Malaysia, which is more service oriented. Look at the amount of foreign investment in the IT sphere in the country, as well as the rising banking systems in the country--and this will continue to rise as foreign demand for high skilled laborers in the Philippines is at hand. The Philippines, unlike China and Thailand, graduates thousands of highly skilled individuals in the engineering, medical, teaching, banking fields every year--and are employed abroad, unlike the manufacturing-oriented economies of the region.
Ate Belle did bring up a great point. Why would the Philippines need to import raw materials from Thailand and China considering the Philippines itself is endowed with rich natural resources? Forgive me for being limited in the fields of economics and marketing, perhaps Mr. Ferniz and others could care to explain this?
Thanks.
Good question there Bran and I am expecting somebody would ask.
Everybody knew that China is the cheapest manufacturer of raw materials. At the moment, they have all the facilities to manufacture almost everything.
Whereas, if we manufacture the raw materials (mainly the plain cloth), we have to start with investing on big machineries like the loom.
Hence, it would take a lot of gamble to start someting big. Moreover, this is only half of the story. The other half is what marketing is called the ATL (Above the line) expenseses such as advertisement, Print Materials, Publicities, Agents/representatives to promote your products and marketing. You have to invest on a Website, promoters, Newspaper Ads to be known.
Hence, you have to manage your limited/available budget wisely.
In other countries, such as China, Germany, France, UK, USA their governments are supporting private enterprise by organizing International Trade Fairs. They even built a facility for this such as in Fiera, Milano Italy, where it is like a huge city with hotels and convention centres are build just to showcase thier private industry. Also the Shanghai and Guangzou Exhibition Centre in China. Germany is also hosting the yearly Hymtex Textile exhibition in Munich.
So, private businesses don't need to spend huge budget for publicity because their government is supporting them. Besides, these will draw an influx of international visitors, thus benefiting resorts, hotels and tourism industry in general.
As I have explained previously, buyers are looking for new unique designs and quality is only a second criteria.
In the general sense, this business is service/skilled oriented and not manufacturing oriented. That's why we are not bothered about the raw material (the manufacturing oriented), but rather, focus on the design and assembly, the creative service oriented side.
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