The Korea Institute for Development Strategy (KDS, President Seung-Hun
Chun) held the Final Reporting Workshop online at the Plaza Hotel in Seoul on
October 15, 2020 as a part of its implementation of the “2019/20 Knowledge
Sharing Program (KSP) Ⅱ Policy Consultation on Public Finance Management System
for Philippines". The KDS team (Managing Director of Sustainable Growth
Group Hongmin Chun, Economic Growth Team Leader WookBeom Park, Program Officer Sanghyun Lee and Sungmin Kim, and
Researcher Seungmin Yum), and researchers (Professor Taihyuk Kang of Hankyong National University and Professor Yonglak
Choi of Soongsil University) presented the
results of the research and final policy recommendations to participants of the
Philippine Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
From the Launching Seminar on May 8 to the Final Report Workshop on
Oct 15, the project has been successfully completed through dedicated efforts
of the researchers and close communication and cooperation from local
institutions and experts even under difficult situations where business trips
and invitations to Korea were not possible due to COVID-19 situation. The KDS
team and researchers have conducted close cooperation with the co-authors and
local experts in the Philippines, replacing the on-site investigation, and drawn
various recommendations for the establishment of an integrated financial management
system in the Philippines.
The Final Reporting Workshop was held as a non-face-to-face online
meeting due to the COVID-19 situation in the Philippines and Korea. Starting
with the opening address of Senior Advisor Yong Hi Lee, a former
Plenipotentiary Minster of Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Korea to the
OECD, the research team's research announcement about "Policy
recommendations through the analysis of the Philippine government's financial
information management system and the Korean financial information management
system dBrain" and "Measures to improve the operation of the current
budget financial management system" followed. In addition, on behalf of
the invitation to Korea, KDS released a video for the policy practitioners in collaboration
with the Korea Public Finance Information Service (KPFIS), and received various
complementary comments from participants from both Korea and the Philippines.
Through the closing remarks, Assistant Secretary and Chief Information Officer
Clarito Alejandro Magsino of the Philippine Department of Budget and
Management (DBM) expressed his deep gratitude to the
Korean stakeholders, including the KDS team and researchers, for their
meaningful results in conducting the research despite difficult circumstances. He
also assured that this KSP research would be of great help to the Philippine
government's mid- to long-term policy direction, which would deepen the
friendship and cooperation between the two countries.
Through this KSP research, we hope that it will contribute to the
establishment of an integrated financial information management system at the
pan-government level in the future and the improvement of the current budget
financial management system, and will greatly help secure financial soundness
and transparency in the Philippines. Furthermore, based on the strong
cooperative relationship between Korea and the Philippines that wisely overcame
the difficulties of the COVID-19 situation, we hope to contribute to the
discovery of additional related projects and the establishment of
future-oriented relations between the two countries.