The CIG Talks on CREATE Act: Resource Speakers. From top row, left: DTI Usec Rafaelita Aldaba and DTI BTIPR Director Janet Cuenca; middle row from left is DOF Asec Juvy Danofrata and BOI-IPS Division Chief Dino Recto; bottom row, left is SEIPI President Dr. Danilo Lachica and the event’s moderator, UP School of Economics Professor Dr. Renato Reside, Jr.

BOOSTING PHILIPPINES’ ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROSPECTS THROUGH THE CREATE LAW

MAKATI CITY –The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Competitiveness and Innovation Group (CIG) successfully conducted this year’s last CIG Talks, entitled; “The Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act: Boosting the Philippines’ Economic Recovery Prospects” on 13 December 2021. The webinar was attended by over 300 participants via Zoom, which was also livestreamed through the official Facebook pages of DTI and the Department of Finance (DOF).

Opening the program was Trade and Industry Undersecretary Rafaelita M. Aldaba who set the tone of the event by sharing the DTI-CIG’s vision of a dynamic industry ecosystems that generate quality jobs and investments and create new products and services leading to shared prosperity for all where no one gets left behind.

One of the recovery mechanisms under the CREATE is the recently formulated Strategic Investment Priority Plan (SIPP). Undersecretary Aldaba further underscored that the SIPP is envisioned to be an engine for industrial development. “It will provide support measures to upgrade and produce more diversified and sophisticated products towards the creation of modern and competitive industrial capacities in manufacturing, agriculture and services that would support export and import competing capabilities,” she added.

One of the resource speakers, Asst. Secretary Juvy Danofrata of the DOF highlighted the salient points and the provisions of the law that will enable further growth and development of our industry sectors. CREATE allows firms to reinvest more through income tax cuts. It offers various tax relief measures to stimulate the economy, and provides government flexibility in the grant of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to businesses and investors. This is critical as the country competes internationally for high-value investments in the post-pandemic era.

The DTI and DOF have been collaborating on the CREATE Act, touted as the largest fiscal stimulus package for businesses in the country’s recent history, providing private enterprises more than PHP1 trillion worth of tax relief over the next 10 years with a significant cut on the tax rate for corporations. Through this law, the Philippines is expected to become a more viable and competitive destination for investment and doing business as we reduce the initial 30% CIT rate, previously the highest in Southeast Asian region, to 20% for MSME domestic enterprises and 25% for other corporate entities.

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