Incoming Philippine cabinet to continue high-growth path

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The transition team of Rodrigo Duterte, the presumptive Philippine president, says his administration will continue the economic policies of his predecessor that put the Southeast Asian nation on a high growth path.

READ: Duterte camp bares 8-point economic agenda

Duterte’s team says they also plan to stamp out corruption in revenue collecting agencies, adjust income taxes, lift restrictions on foreign investment and accelerate infrastructure spending.

Carlos Dominguez, a former agricultural secretary likely to be part of Duterte’s cabinet, said Thursday the new administration will continue Aquino’s target of spending 5 percent of gross domestic product on infrastructure and will remove bottlenecks to private-public partnerships projects.

The new government will also focus on eliminating corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs, adjust income tax tables to inflation and lower taxes for lower-income earners. TVJ