Bongbong Marcos wanted the Philippines to become the next logistics center in Asia.
BONGBONG MARCOS — Presidential aspirant Ferdinand Marcos Jr wanted the Philippines to become the next logistics center in Asia in order to hasten the country’s economic recovery in a post-pandemic world.
According to Bongbong, he’s pursuing a plan that will modernize the existing seaports, airports, and railways in the country aside from increasing their accessibility to other gateways.
He added that investment in this key area will boost the nation’s export and import capacity thus giving opportunities for local industries to recover.
“Our strategic location in the Pacific (region) is an advantage that no other country has. It’s time for us to leverage this and aspire to become a major logistics hub in the region. To achieve this we will need to modernize our existing seaports, airports, and railways or build new ones where necessary,” Bongbong said.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said that there’s an uneven rate of recovery in global trade among nations. Poor countries and small economies in the world were falling behind their peers who were posting double-digit growth rates and exceeding their pre-pandemic levels.
According to UNCTAD, one reason for the trend was that countries with small economies were more fragile than larger economies, making the impact of the pandemic even worse. It also forecasted the value of global trade for 2021 to be 20 percent to 28 percent higher than 2019 and 2020, respectively.
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“Global trade will recover soon, and we as a nation should make sure that we are in a better position to benefit from it. It will be crucial in our recovery since it can help generate revenues we can use to continue programs to help the poor severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Bongbong said.
In addition, Bongbong cited the surging popularity of e-commerce platforms among Filipinos as a strong indicator of the need to enhance the logistics capability in the country.
Bongbong also said that investing in port automation, computerization, and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be needed in order to prevent port congestion, increase efficiency, and redound to lower shipping costs.
Manila Bulletin reported that smart ports currently employ shared data platforms, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) to plan and manage key port operations including vessel and truck traffic management, warehousing, container stacking, and transshipments.
Moreover, Bongbong believed that the increased trade achieved by modernizing airports, seaports, and railways will create a steady income stream for the government and will sustain programs that will help the poor affected by the pandemic.
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