THE NEXT PRESIDENT of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has told Philippine officials that he supports Manila’s attempts to expand social inclusion through universal health care (UHC) and free state university education.
In a meeting with Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III in mid-October in Washington, DC, Masatsugu Asakawa the former Special Advisor to the Japanese Prime Minister and Tokyo’s nominee to head the ADB, described the UHC program and free tertiary education at state universities and colleges as “really good” initiatives for social inclusion.
Mr. Asakawa was quoted as saying in a DoF statement that he is planning to expand social inclusion in his capacity as ADB head through improved education and health care across the region as well as developing a universal framework for a global e-commerce tax system.
“Securing high quality jobs for people could be a better instrument than transfer of money. So ‘social inclusion,’ which means providing more education, securing more health care to let them have better jobs is really important. So far ADB has done something but I would like to expand the conversation as well,” Mr. Asakawa was quoted as saying.
He said that a universal framework is important in taxing multinational companies “profiting from the highly lucrative electronic trade of goods in the global marketplace.”
He said there are “radical and innovative” proposals involving taxing such companies that derive a certain percentage of their earnings from e-commerce and sharing the proceeds with countries where the goods are traded.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dominguez also reiterated his desire for “closer coordination” between the ADB and World Bank to avoid duplication of efforts in extending assistance to countries.
“We want to continue that effort to make sure that cooperation and coordination between the two institutions are not duplicated,” he said. — Beatrice M. Laforga
