Czeriza Valencia (The Philippine Star)
October 4, 2019
MANILA, Philippines — Increasing the diversity and complexity of products and services offered by the country, as well as the skills of the workers in industries, are key to generating equitable wealth, according to industry experts.
In a presentation to members of Akademyang Filipino at the Manila House over the weekend, Standard Insurance CEO John Echauz said the Philippines has yet to tap into the full potential of industries to create highly specialized products that are offered in only a few markets in the world.
His presentation, titled “Economic Complexity: How increasing product diversity and collective know-how drives national prosperity,” takes off from the economic theory of Venezuelan economist Ricardo Hausmann that countries producing the most high-value and complex products fare better than countries producing low-value and ubiquitious products.
One of the first ways to foster complexity and diversity of industries is to improve the “collective knowhow” of industries as several complex products like high technology ones are made by teams of high professionals, Echauz said.