The government is directing its investment-promotion campaign to the country’s “nontraditional partners” this year, as part of efforts to broaden President Duterte’s self-styled independent foreign policy.
Trade Undersecretary Nora K. Terrado said the Department of Trade and Industry is keen on establishing stronger ties with the country’s nontraditional partners, mostly those that were left hanging in the past administrations. Aside from the government’s push to renew bilateral relations with China, she added the DTI is aiming to invite more investors from Russia and India.
As a matter of fact, Terrado said the President’s official visit to India last week is significant to Manila’s renewal of ties with New Delhi. “The other matter that the President is keen on is his independent foreign policy, and also diversification of investing markets,” she said at the BusinessMirror’s Coffee Club forum on Wednesday.
“As you will know from our behavior, we go to markets that are, in previous years, not being visited. For one, we have gone to China. We have gone to Russia. Lately, we have also gone to India. We were not there for many years, for almost a decade. Now, we were back there in India,” Terrado said.
In compliance with Duterte’s policy to veer the country from traditional partners, Terrado said the DTI is turning its head at nontraditional partners for possible investment opportunities. She said “it is important to have a diversified portfolio for a growing country like us.”
However, this does not mean the country is already turning away from its traditional partners, like the European Union, Japan and the United States.
“We are also positioning ourselves as a strong partner to our traditional markets,” the trade official clarified.
“Traditional markets will be there, but the goal is to diversify our investments portfolio this year,” she added. She cited the $1.25 billion worth of investment commitments from India during the President’s visit there, mostly going to renewable energy, as an example of why the country should expand its ties.
“We expect that [nontraditional partners investing in our country this year] because the way we work with attracting investments is, first of all, we would like to prospect. We want to prospect around, and our prospects that have become hot come from both traditional markets and nontraditional markets, such as India,” she said.