SMX Convention Center, Pasay City
27 March 2015

President Benigno S. Aquino III urged the business leaders of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII) to further increase their participation in nation building and help empower the Filipino people as he graced the opening ceremony of its 30th biennial convention at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.

“The true path to sustained profit and growth lies in empowering our workers. Increasing their disposable income increases demand, and therefore increases competition. It logically follows that this pushes companies to strive for greater productivity, allowing them to become more competitive even beyond our borders, which leads to growth for the economy-at-large. This is the approach that allows for a situation where, truly, everybody wins,” the President said.

He emphasized that in the past four years and nine months, his administration had focused on inclusive growth, wherein a large part of the economic strategy intersects with social strategy. This is the reason for the substantial increases in the budgets of the Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), which enabled the expansion of social services projects such as the DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and TESDA’s Training for Work Scholarship Program that FFCCCII assisted in the construction of its Green Technology Center.

“The numbers are impressive: Over the course of our administration, TESDA has granted more than 1.4 million scholarships…there has likewise been a very significant improvement in terms of employment rates. TWSP graduates, for instance, registered an employment rate of 70 percent in 2012, and has even reached nearly 96 percent in specific sectors. Compare this to the employment rate of all TESDA scholars from 2006 to 2008, which was just at 28.5 percent,” President Aquino added.

Almost 800 delegates from all over the country gathered for FFCCCII’s 30th biennial convention this year which carries the theme, “Gearing Up for ASEAN Integration and Sustainable Growth.”

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