Ayala Corporation Chairman and CEO Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala and University of the Philippines School of Economics Dean Ramon L. Clarete sign the Memorandum of Agreement launching the second phase of the Ayala Corporation-UP School of Economics Forum (AC-UPSE Economic Forum). Witnessing the event were UP President Alfredo E. Pascual, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, Ayala Corporation Managing Director John Philip S. Orbeta, UPSE Professors Majah-Leah Ravago and Marina Fe Durano.
The first phase of the AC-UPSE Economic Forum was a collaboration of Ayala and UP School of Economics that implemented a three-year research dissemination program from 2008 to 2011. The program provided a venue for important policy research findings to be communicated to policy makers and the public in general through a series of forums. The undertaking reaped twelve forums that featured lectures from some of the country’s most noted economists speaking on a range of vital topics affecting the Philippines and the world economy. Topics included exchange-rate policy; fiscal behavior; labor exports and remittances; taxation and spending; the global financial crisis; agrarian reform; international monetary system; institutions and growth; key issues confronting the next president; labor and employment; housing policy; and public support to tertiary education.
The second phase of the partnership will undertake and publicly disseminate applied economic research to help identify stimuli for sustained economic growth in the Philippines. The Program identifies four key areas to focus on: fiscal policies of the Aquino government, assessment of recent Philippine economic performance, key productive sectors of the Philippine economy, and nature, causes and implications to the Philippines of the unfolding changes going on in the economies of its key trading partners.