The government will pursue technological innovations to build new industries, enhance the delivery of public services, and generate employment and investment opportunities in an effort to substantially reduce the national government's debt-to-GDP ratio, a Cabinet official said on Monday.

"All of these efforts will help us bring down our debt-to-GDP ratio to less than 60 percent by 2025, then further down to 51 percent in 2028. It will cut the deficit-to-GDP ratio to 3.0 percent by 2028," Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said during The Asset 17th Philippine Summit themed "Mobilizing investments, accelerating growth."

"We will also take advantage of the structural reforms we have in place to attract domestic and foreign investments and create high-value jobs," Diokno added.

The Finance Secretary said these reforms include the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act or CREATE, and the amendments to the Public Service Act, Retail Trade Liberalization Act and Foreign Investments Act.

CREATE law pivotal

The CREATE Law has transformed the corporate tax regime and modernized the structure of our tax incentive system.

Additionally, CREATE offers a single menu of superior incentives for businesses and activities that are aligned with the Philippines' strategic priorities.

Diokno said that "we have also amended our investment laws to widen the space for international firms to invest in previously protected sectors."

"We have a large pool of young, highly-skilled, and tech-savvy workers that is ready to compete with the global workforce," he added.

This demographic sweet spot is not only an invaluable asset to national development. As main drivers of consumption, the workers are also the country's top contributor to economic growth, Diokno said.

Moreover, he said that from 2023 to 2028, expect the economy to expand even faster at 6.5 percent to 8 percent. This is one of the highest projections among the Asean+3 countries, which include Japan, South Korea and China.

"As for foreign direct investments, we reached all-time high inflows of $12.4 billion in 2021. From January to July of this year, FDI inflows reached $5.1 billion," said the Finance Secretary.