Digital Competitiveness Ranking is a Wake-Up Call to PH Government
October 14, 2022Digital Competitiveness Ranking is a Wake-Up Call to PH Government
The Philippines’ dismal ranking in the IMD’s World Global Competitiveness ranking is a wake-up call to the government to step up its efforts to achieve digital transformation in the country.
We can look at the results in two ways. We can say the Philippines inched up two notches in the overall ranking, from 56th to 58th place. But the fact remains that with 63 countries included in the report, ranking 56th is so much closer to the bottom than it is to the top.
More importantly, we are the worst performers in Southeast Asia, lagging far behind our neighbors Singapore (4th), Malaysia (31st), Thailand (40th), and Indonesia (51st). For the whole of Asia, we outperformed only Mongolia.
This is a serious matter – and to think we are a country that is touted as one of the most active social media users in the world.
No less than the IMD itself says that the rankings will ideally help governments and companies understand where to focus their resources. These will also provide leads on best practices when economies embark on digital transformation.
What this tells us is that our leaders and policy makers should address the resistance encountered by technology innovators in the form of bureaucratic gauntlets and unresponsive policies that need to be updated to enable a competitive digital economic system.
These obstacles are causing costly delays in their efforts to expand and upgrade our digital infrastructure.
For itself, the government needs to accelerate the automation of its operations and front-line transactions, increase productivity and efficiency, and generally make it easy for the public to digitally access services.
And while the government is still developing its ICT capacity and talent, the private sector is a ready partner for technology and expertise.
Thus, the government must forge a greater partnership with the private sector to strengthen the investment environment and regulatory framework. This will encourage more investments in technology infrastructure as well as in training and education to upgrade the skills of our workforce.