A SENIOR lawmaker has filed bills separately amending the outdated provisions of the Public Service Act, Foreign Service Investments Act and Retail Trade Liberalization Act.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Ray Villafuerte, in a statement, said the three business-friendly measures aim to open wide the economy to more foreign direct investments (FDI).
The three bills are among the congressional measures that the Executive Department has asked the 18th Congress to approve this year to fulfill the President’s goal of further revving up the economy, creating more jobs and significantly lowering poverty incidence by 2022.
According to Villafuerte, these bills seek to separately amend the outdated provisions of the said laws, which are all more than 15 years old, to make the country’s business climate more conducive to big, long-term investments that could supercharge the domestic economy and generate hundreds of thousands of decent-paying jobs for the country’s young, skilled labor force.
“We need to relax the restrictions in doing business in the country that have become deal-breakers for foreign investors despite the Philippines’s emergence as one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia,” Villafuerte said.
He said these amendments should serve as the “opening act” for Congress’s eventual move to amend the 1987 Charter by paving the way for a government switch to federalism and liberalizing foreign ownership restrictions that have barred the Philippines from attracting the relatively higher levels of FDI now enjoyed by its neighbors like Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.
One of the laws that Villafuerte seeks to amend, the 82-year-old Public Service Act, aims to open more industries previously misclassified as public utilities to foreign investments.
Under Villafuerte’s bill, the term public utility shall only refer to the transmission of electricity, distribution of electricity and waterworks and sewerage systems.
Among others, the bill seeks to clarify the existing confusion between public utility and public service, he said.
It also seeks to formalize the transfer of functions of the Public Service Commission to various administrative agencies; create a mechanism to fix rates while considering a reasonable rate of return; and improve the administrative remedies of the agencies through the fixing of the fines and penalties, Villafuerte said.
Foreign investment
Villafuerte also sought amendments to Republic Act 8179, or the Foreign Investments Act of 1991, to delete the “practice of professions” from the items listed in the Foreign Investment Negative List (FINL) promulgated by the President.
The bill also intends to lower the employment threshold to 15 for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) established by foreign investors with a minimum paid-up capital of $100,000.
“These amendments to the Foreign Investments Act show the country’s openness to change and willingness to live up to our economic potential by reeling in more foreign investments,” Villafuerte said.
He said the bill also “hopes to facilitate the transfer of technologies by attracting FDI and further hopes to make the Philippines more accessible to foreign investors and generate more employment opportunities in the country.”
Retail trade
Also, the bill said the amendments to the 19-year-old Retail Trade Liberalization Act (RA 8762) are similarly necessary to encourage more FDI in the domestic retail industry, Villafuerte said.
The measure also seeks to lower the minimum paid-up capital of foreign-owned businesses. From requiring $830,000 to invest in the country, a foreign firm would only need $200,000 to enter the local retail industry.
“In order to accommodate more foreign investors in the country, this bill also proposes to help ease-in the entry of foreign retailers by minimizing the equity and capitalization requirements needed,” Villafuerte said.
“This is in line with the administration’s bid to make the Philippines host to more foreign investments and create a more favorable investment environment,” he added.
1 comment
More likely to cater to chinese businessmen like their chinese telco partners. it will now probably also allow the practice in the country by foreign accountants, engineers, doctors and nurses, etc. Wow. The philippines is indeed the most hospitable country in the world when our own professionals cannot practice abroad because of restrictions. What a 1 sided kind of hospitality. Para lubusan na ay dapat sinama na nila pati practice of govt service like congressmen, senators, president para tumino at tumalino naman mga govt officials natin.