An official of a Filipino-owned manufacturing company is urging the government to help exporters address the continued strengthening of the peso against the dollar.

Oriental and Motolite Marketing Corp. president Don Albert Cuesta, in a forum dubbed "New Paradigm on Foreign Exchange Management" in Makati yesterday, said local manufacturers were facing threats of closing down because of the decline in their competitiveness vis-à-vis foreign counterparts.

Exporters have been urging the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas  in particular to address the continuing improvement of the peso against the dollar citing that this is hurting their sector.

Also, National Scientist and UP Economics professor Dr. Raul Fabella, during the same briefing, said strengthening of the peso is detrimental not only to the exporters but the business process outsourcing sector as well.

He said that India’s rupee had been depreciating against the dollar, thus, India, which is the main competitor of the Philippines in terms of BPO becomes more attractive.

Business Processing Association of the Philippine executive director for Finance and PMO Ronald Arambulo, during the same briefing, said that the sector’s $25-billion income target in 2016 was hindered by the continuing strengthening of the peso.

The sector targets to provide 4.5 million jobs by 2016 and Arambulo said this endeavor would really boost domestic growth.

“And so the concern is if the (foreign exchange) rate falls we will move but if the exchange rate starts to hover and stabilize for an extended period of time in the high and mid-30s then that growth is at risk,” he said.

To date, the peso is trading at 42-level against the dollar.*PNA

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