The Australian government has set the stage in providing adequate assistance to sustain the growth and development of five major Philippine sectors that will contribute in spurring the country’s economic growth.
Australian Ambassador to the Philippine Hae Kyong Yu said that among the five Philippine sectors that the Australian government intends to extend assistance include food security, energy security, mining, education and skills development and digitalization and information technology.
The Australian ambassador claimed that in terms of food security, the Australian government wants to trade with the Philippines good quality agricultural products since her country is producing more than what the people need.
Further, she stated that aside from trading, the Australian government wants to improve the Philippines’ agricultural productivity by improving the health of the soil through the national solid health program geared towards achieving food security for the Philippines.
Ambassador Yu pointed out that the embassy already identified four provinces that will benefit from the study on the health of their soils to be undertaken by top caliber Australian scientists to identify interventions to be implemented to improve soil health towards improved productivity in the agriculture sector.
According to her, education and skills development is also one aspect of governance that the Australian government wants to help the Philippines through established vocational and skills training to be undertaken through a lasting partnership considering that Australia has one of the best education systems in the world that it would like to introduce to the country.
Yu pointed out that the Australian government also wants to help in maximizing the potentials of the Philippine mining sector by introducing its best practices, sharing of the established partnership with indigenous communities and the provision of state-of-the-art equipment that can be used in mining since 14 percent of the economy of Australia comes from the lucrative mining sector.
Moreover, the Aussie envoy stipulated that her government also wants to share to the Philippines its desire to shift to ‘green mining’ through the use of available renewable energy that will contribute in efforts to preserve and protect the environment and address the serious negative impact of climate change to the global economy.
Yu explained that in terms of digitalization and information technology, Australia has numerous companies that are experts in responsible cyber security where these firms could share to their Philippine counterparts their expertise to help ensure the protection of the digital space from breaches that would compromise the data of Filipinos.
She underscored the importance of securing the system that will be put in place to guarantee its reliability to entice more Filipinos to embrace digitalization towards speeding up economic activities in the future.
Yu was among the foreign dignitaries that attended the 2023 edition of the Annual National Mine Safety and Environment Conference. which was spearheaded by the prestigious Philippine Mine Safety and Environment Association with the theme Mining 4.0: Safer, Smarter and Sustainable.
