9 June 2015 Bagac, Bataan—The Philippines, host of the 2015 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings, opens the Workshop on Fiscal Management Through Transparency and Reforms today in Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar. The workshop extends until 10 June and immediately precedes the Senior Finance Officials Meeting on 11-12 June, turning the 400-hectare heritage resort into a recreated town of historical structures housing the work of a region re-imagining its future.
Philippine Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima, chair of the APEC 2015 Finance Ministers’ Process, looked forward to the outcome of the meetings saying, ““The Philippines has emerged a regional leader in openness. We wish to join fellow pioneers of transparency in sharing how opening up governments radically opens up opportunities for sustained, inclusive growth.
This principle is what underpins our firm belief in good governance reaping great economic gains. It is a principle we think should be a core pillar of our vision for APEC’s future.”
Delegates are set to discuss fiscal policies for inclusive growth and addressing inequality, where member economies will share public spending experiences in health and education. The workshop will examine trends in expanding fiscal space to accommodate inclusive forms of government investment.
Further, economies in the region are increasingly responsive to demands to make public investment management more efficient, as well as to deliver good and open governance through open data. Sessions will introduce Open Data and its regional and global practices, exploring how to deepen sustainable gains and reforms in transparency and openness.
Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Undersecretary Richard E. Moya, a key champion of open data in the Philippines, is expected to lead a session on regional perspectives with innovation delivering improved public services and good governance, while generating commercial and economic activity.
Further, the workshop will draw on New Zealand’s and the Philippines’ experiences with open budgets as a means to enhance fiscal management and accountability. Meanwhile, Korean and Philippine practices in open procurement and contracting, as well as active citizen participation will be likewise explored.
APEC member economies recognize how public finance and fiscal policy reform are needed to generate more government revenues without dampening the levels of taxpayer consumption. Discussions are expected to cover rationalizing the provision of fiscal incentives and subsidies, which are key strategies that policymakers utilize to encourage private investment. Member economies will take measures to learn the proper design of such instruments in order to avoid base erosion and reducing in critical public investments. Indonesia’s experience with subsidy reform will be shared as a key discussion point.
Finally, member economies will undertake successful modernizations of treasury systems, showing how it facilitates budget allocation, execution, audit, and control, as well as improve technical efficiency and cash management.
The workshop is critical to firming up the Cebu Action Plan being proposed by the Philippines, with inputs from this particular meeting feeding into the fiscal transparency pillar of CAP.
In delivering opening remarks for the workshop, Finance Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran said, “We anticipate that the discussions in this workshop can produce strategies to further enhance the work in fiscal transparency and policy reform.
We also envision that this Workshop will serve as a venue for APEC economies to find areas of collaboration in fiscal transparency and policy reform, true to the role of APEC as a forum for economic and technical cooperation among its member-economies.”
