By Katrina Gracia Consebido
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Tuesday, Sept. 20, highlighted the vital role of foreign direct investments (FDI) in the country’s economic transformation during the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Business Forum in the United States.
Marcos said FDIs will transform the country’s economy aside from its role in supporting economic recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, in response to NYSE Vice Chairperson and Chief Commercial Officer John Tuttle’s query on foreign investment’s value on the administration’s economic targets.
The President said that adapting to the changing global economy in the height of the pandemic is necessary to be able to “take advantage of those changes to have a head start in the new economy.”
“And a large part of that will be foreign investment in the Philippines. And when I speak of foreign investment, I speak especially of capital intensive investment, because although we have our GDP, if we look at our GDP figures, a great deal of the contribution to GDP has been in our service sector,” he said.
He added that he is seeing the manufacturing sector doing “a better job” and he is considering capital intensive investment in achieving the economic targets.
The Chief Executive brought his economic team to explain to prospective investors the Philippines’ direction and to share policy updates that have made investing in the country more “profitable and more attractive for foreign investors.”
Marcos is confident that the country’s economy is on the right track and that the Philippine economy will thrive if foreign investors continue to invest.
“I believe we are headed in the right direction; and I believe that if we continue down this road and we are able to attract investors to this new investing climate that we are starting to create in the Philippines, then I believe that with the role that foreign direct investment will play I think we could succeed,” he said. –ag