The Growing Digital Economy in the Philippines
Mohammad J Sear
Digital Gov. & Public Sector Consulting Leader, Middle East and Africa (MENA) at EY
The Philippine's digital sector is thriving and affecting its economy tremendously due to the government's strong support and investment. As of 2020, the Philippine's Internet economy was estimated to be worth USD 7.5 billion and is expected to increase by 30 percent every year to reach USD 28 billion by 2025. To achieve this digital vision, the Philippine Government has drafted particular strategies to guide decision-making.
One of these special strategies is the "E-Commerce Philippine 2022 Roadmap"; it is a strategic framework that shows the plans and policies that utilize the advantages of e-commerce.
However, the country is tackling several challenges to fully implement a digital transformation, such as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), low digital adoption, and a lack of skilled digital workers.
The Philippine government can do better in its digital transformation efforts, and the outbreak of the Covid-19 Pandemic has ensured that they take proactive measures. The Philippines has enormous potential to thrive digitally, considering its digitally savvy population.
According to a survey, the pandemic has accelerated the digital revolution by five years worldwide, allowing the Philippines to embark on different digital projects. Hence, the reason policymakers should understand the benefits that digital transformation can bring to the Philippine economy, and aggressively pursue this path.
Government online shift may boost Philippine digital economy
The Philippine digital economy has the potential to grow an estimated amount of $150 billion in the next ten years if the government is intentional about its online shift.
The Philippine government is already on the right track and making conscious efforts toward building a digital world where nobody is left out. Although the Internet is the best tool to distribute digital education and drive digital services to all, the national and local governments also have their part to play.
According to DigiPinas, the Philippine digital economy is estimated to be about $20 billion currently but can still boost to $150 billion in the next ten years. DigiPinas is a multi-sectoral initiative led by the UBX Philipines Corp to improve digital technology and encourage digital transformation in the government. UBX is the financial technology unit of UnionBank of the Philippines, Inc.
Digital governance to make services fast and transparent
At the National Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Summit 2022, President Ferdinand said that the Philippine government must leverage new technologies and techniques to provide the best services for its people.
And if the country wants to be successful in digitalizing its government and to improve the way they do business and communicate, then they need to make the digitalization process as affordable and efficient as possible. The summit was timely because everything that was discussed would be implemented to improve their digital position in the world.
Also, the ICT summit seeks to improve ICT in the nation and initiate public-private partnerships (PPs) in investing in initialization to provide better services to Filipinos.
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Need to catch up
In the summit, the president reiterated his plan to ensure the government can keep up with recent developments since he discovered that the Philippines has ranked 89th out of 193 countries in the UN e-government survey.
The president expressed his concern about leading a nation lagging in digitalization development and added that more efforts should be made to catch up with the rest of the world.
For the country to keep up all its plans for the transformation of the economy, they need to digitalize.
Partnership with the private sector
At the summit, the president said that the country could only digitalize government services if they employed the help of the private sector. Public-private partnership is essential to achieve the government's vision for governance because the private sector is leading in technology.
The partnership will not be a business partnership. Instead, it will be an avenue for sharing technologies and knowledge. The Philipines are already blessed with the tools, knowledge, people, and resources; what's left is the will and resolve to achieve the vision.
The swift passage of bills
The President also assured the citizens that he would ensure the passage of the proposed E-Government Act and E-Governance act to improve government services. He noted that there was a commitment to consolidate the passing of these bills, and he will make sure of it.
Conclusion
The Philippine government is concentrating on digitalization to improve government services and the economy. While this is a great plan, it would be great if they improve other sectors of the nation, like the infrastructure, society and education, digitally.