By Alec Go
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. pursued investors in the United States on Tuesday, Sept. 20 (Philippine time), citing the country’s commitment to sound macroeconomic fundamentals and a clear development roadmap.
In his speech at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Economic Forum, Marcos said the Philippines is further opening up its economy to speed up recovery from the pandemic with a robust growth seen since last year.
“Against this backdrop, we have increased the scope for mutually beneficial investments that would mean more jobs and a better quality of life for Filipinos. For investors, doing business in the Philippines is an opportunity to reap the benefits of a vibrant economy,” he said.
Among the policies cited to open doors for more investments are the lowering of corporate income tax rates and rationalization of fiscal incentives, as well as the reduction of minimum paid-up capital requirements for foreign retailers and foreign startups in advanced new technology.
Marcos also mentioned the country’s decision to allow full foreign ownership of companies providing public services.
“To international investors, the Philippines offers high-quality labor, a large consumer market, and a wide range of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives. At the same time, we remain committed to maintaining sound macroeconomic fundamentals providing a clear development roadmap,” he said.
The President said foreign direct investments will also transform the country’s economy on top of the ongoing recovery.
“[We] have to position ourselves certainly to be able to take advantage of those changes to have a head start in the new economy that we are still, as of now, starting to form globally, and a large part of that will be foreign investment in the Philippines,” he said.
“[When] I speak of foreign investment, I speak especially of capital intensive investment because although we have our GDP [gross domestic product], if we look at our GDP figures, a great deal of the contribution to GDP has been in our service sector,” he continued.
The Philippine GDP is projected to grow by 6.5% to 7.5% this 2022 and by 6.5% to 8.0% from 2023 to 2028.
Marcos said the country’s manufacturing sector can still do better through capital intensive investment to meet its targets such as managing inflation and reducing poverty rate to single digits by 2028.
To support this, he said manufacturing activity settled above the growth threshold of 50 for the past seven consecutive months and stood at 51.2 last August. He also mentioned investing into education and training to improve the workforce which he described as the country’s asset.
The President is in New York to participate in the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly where he will be joining in the high-level general debates early Wednesday morning. -gp
