There is now broad consensus that the Philippines should aim to have a globally competitive services sector. Applying Porter`s framework on creating national competitive advantage (the diamond), this paper presents a comprehensive government strategy recognizing that it has an important albeit...

APEC 2015 provides an opportunity for the Philippines to advance its economic interests in services and contribute to regional integration by focusing on global value chains (GVCs) that are now believed to account for more than 50 percent of global trade. This paper looks at the GVC phenomenon...

The paper looks at the role of services in the economy and discusses why competitive services are necessary for achieving inclusive growth. An overview of Philippine services sectors is first presented highlighting their economic contribution as well as performance. This is followed by a...

Prior to the liberalization of the telecommunications sector in 1993, telephone service in the Philippines was provided by a private monopoly. This article examines whether or not the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company's (PLDT) virtual monopoly of the market was justifiable based on cost...

Under the service area scheme, firms are required to install basic telephone service as a condition to complete in the cellular and international phone service markets. This study looks at the case of Metro Manila which was arbitrarily subdivided by the regulator into four sections as part of...

This paper develops new measures of multimodal transport connectivity, and uses a gravity model to show that improving performance could lead to major trade gains for the Asia-Pacific region. By improving multimodal connectivity by 5%, APEC would increase exports by around 4%, or between 2% and...