EFN Asia Holds Property Rights Conference
in Manila
 From
left to right: Mr. Rainer Heufers, FNF Indonesia resident
representative, Dr. Mark Mullins, Fraser Institute executive
director and Dr. Chung-ho Kim, Center for Free Enterprise
president |
To mark the 10th anniversary of the
Economic
Freedom Network (EFN) Asia, the Network decided to return to
its Philippine beginnings by holding its ninth conference on 18-19
September 2008 at the University of Asia and the Pacific, Pasig
City. Choosing “Private Property Rights: The Economic Foundation
of a Free Society" as its theme, EFN Asia linked up with the
Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF),
Center
for Research and Communication, the
Philippine
Economic Society, the Foundation for Economic Freedom and the
School
of Economics University of Asia and the Pacific for this event.
Over 200 international and local participants from civil society,
government and academia gathered at the university for two days
to listen to both foreign and resident experts address:
legal
and economic perspectives, acquisition of property by the
state,
significance of property rights in the Economic
Freedom of the World index and
challenges to property rights
in Asia.
 Dr.
James Riddell, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
former service chief, land tenure service |
Of particular noteworthiness within the Philippine context were
the presentations by: i) Arsenio Balisacan, who gave a sobering
assessment of the decidedly limited success of the Agrarian Reform
Program in the Philippines, ii) Arturo Corpuz who looked into restrictions
on land use and iii) Gamaliel Pascual who presented a fascinating
overview of the serious problems in land title administration in
the country and a successful reform project in Cebu city. These
presentations were put into a wider context by international participants
like Dr. James Riddell who looked at the
anthropology of
property rights, Barun Mitra from India who took a social
perspective on property rights, and Dr. Mark Mullins from the Fraser
Institute who looked at
property rights in the context of
economic freedom. Presentations from other Asian countries
dealt these with specific issues from their respective property
rights challenges.
 From
left to right: Mr. Gamaliel Pascual, Asia Foundation capital
markets operations specialist, Dr. Parth J. Shah, Center
for Civil Society president and Mr. Krishna Neupane, Limited
Government president
|
What started as the Foundation’s desire to widen the exposure
of the
Economic Freedom of the World reports in the region
led to an original partnership with the
Fraser
Institute, the Center for Research and Communication and the
Atlas
Economic Research Foundation. Together they organized the first
conference in Manila in 1998 on economic freedom in Asia. This endeavor
has grown into a n
etwork that now boasts think tanks, research
institutes and individuals from more than 20 Asian countries.
It works towards further developing
the use of the Economic
Freedom of the World index in Asia and
exploring
specific areas of economic freedom to gain a deeper understanding
on how to advance specific reforms.
