52nd Annual Meeting

Theme: “Forging Ahead: The Philippines as a Developed Economy by 2050”

Sen. Sonny Angara delivered the keynote address which focused on the needed reforms to steer the economy towards sustained and inclusive long-run growth.

The first plenary session was led by Socio-economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan who talked about the remaining tasks and needed reforms to sustain that the country’s economic growth trajectory. Sec. Balisacan was joined in the session by Rogier van den Brink, Lead Economist of the World Bank East Asia and Pacific, and Shanaka Jayanath Peiris, the International Monetary Fund’s Resident Representative for the Philippines.

The second plenary focused on reforms in another important policy area to secure the needed investments for long-run economic growth: competition. House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte and EU Ambassador Guy Ledoux headlined this plenary session.

The closing plenary tackled an equally important aspect of economic growth: equity. Professors Raul Fabella and James Roumasett led the discussion on equity, in the light of recent work by Thomas Picketty.