KEYNOTE MESSAGE OF SECRETARY RAMON M. LOPEZ
PHILCONSTRUCT LUZON 2019
28 March 2019, ASEAN Convention Center, Clark Pampanga
As delivered
[Acknowledgement]
It was really a challenging task to finish immediately, in just three months, yung atin pong i-la-launch mamaya, the Construction Industry Roadmap. Napakabilis. I think they just started sometime November, and now, we are launching it today. And on a very good timing. We’re launching it on the birthday of our President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. Palakpakan po natin. Unang-una ang ating Pangulo, for being really a selfless, most sincere leader of a country, who is dedicating his life in performing his duties and responsibilities. Kaya ho, let’s give him a warm warm of applause for his 74th birthday.
Ang atin pong i-la-launch na Construction Industry Roadmap, palakpakan din natin. Napakaimportante rin po ng roadmap. That roadmap really stresses out the vision for the industry. This is the vision that we are all in agreement and definitely we are pushing for. The vision that will protect excellent sustainable, productive, and an industry that should be requiring and adopting a culture of integrity. So ‘yun po ang, these are all the characters and values that are being shared in this industry roadmap.
It is a roadmap that will allow us to ride with the growth that the economy is having, the growth that is really unparalleled, 6.2%. And you know what, construction is 15.8% growth in the last quarter. Palakpakan po natin ang construction industry. It is the one pulling up the economy, frankly. If you look at the GDP figures, before we used to be led by Services, all these 6%-7%. Now, the industry is led by two things: manufacturing and construction.
Manufacturing is also helpful. It is also growing to 6%-7%. That is a sustainable growth that is also providing stable and decent jobs for our countrymen. Bawat trabaho na nagagawa natin, could really pull one family out of poverty. That’s for each job that we created. It’s really important that we have manufacturing growing 6%-8%.
Now, construction growing 15.8%, alam naman natin dati single digit lang po yan. Now, everywhere we go, before the average in a quarter was 28,000 construction jobs. Ngayon, in one quarter, we’re reaching 48,000 construction jobs. That’s really good development for the industry.
We support the Build Build Build, the massive infrastructure program.
Before, our economy was led by Consumption growth. Now, it’s being led by Investment and Government spending. Partly because of the Build Build Build program. The Government spending, it is really on investing for the future that creates more infrastructure projects. In the end, bababa ang ating mga logistics cost. It is really for business and greater growth for our industry and agriculture, as we go along the logistics cost. And with the Build Build Build, we look forward to lowering the logistics cost and creating more of those growth centers. One of the fastest growing centers nowadays is here. Hindi pa ba kayo nag-invest ng mga lupa dito? Kaya invest, invest invest here in Clark, here in Central Luzon, the future Smart City in the country.
So, again I would just like to congratulate the sector, the stakeholders who contributed in the industry roadmap, which promotes excellence and make our services globally competitive, allowing us to export these services and really making known that the Philippines really provide globally competitive services, promoting excellence, integrity, sustainability, and productivity.
Good morning po sa inyong lahat!