OF the 130 investment pledges secured during the foreign trips of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., 16 projects valued at US$1.2 billion are expected to be realized soon, according to Trade and Industry Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual.
“We’re looking at 16 projects all in all, including the 9 that I referred to earlier with a total value of US$1.2 billion to come on stream soon,” the Trade chief said in a televised interview on Monday.
According to Pascual, these 16 projects are now registered with the investment promotion agencies (IPAs), namely, the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA).
Of these 16 projects, the Trade chief said 15 are registered in the green lanes, which are instituted to speed up the permitting and licensing process internally in the Philippines.
At the House Committee on Appropriations hearing on the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) proposed 2024 budget last August 24, Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman asked Pascual on the latest data and trend on inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) into the country.
In response, Pascual, who also chairs the Board of Investments (BOI), said that “the sum total of it all is that with all the visits so far that we have done, we’ve been able to generate investment leads in the amount of US$71 billion.” This, he added, is equivalent to 130 projects that will form part of the pipeline of investments which will be realized this year and the coming years.
At the time, Pascual divulged that only nine of the 130 projects were already operational and these projects are spread across these industries: Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Technology, Healthcare, Manufacturing (Unilever and Procter & Gamble).
The nine projects worth US$205 million that have been realized so far which the Trade chief disclosed at the budget hearing have now gone up to 16 projects, or amounting to US$1.2 billion.
Meanwhile, at the same interview on Monday, Pascual said the Philippines is aiming to become the second-highest FDI destination in the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) region.
To achieve the administration’s goal to be number two in Asean in terms of FDI inflows, the Trade chief is banking on the country’s priority sectors such as semiconductor and electronics, among others.
“Very clear in terms of our priority sectors. Our biggest exports consist of electronic devices, electronic products and semiconductors. We will continue to pursue this then our transition to green energy is also a major magnet for foreign investments. In fact, among the investment prospects we have lined up are renewables, projects in renewables like floating offshore wind and even floating solar on Laguna de Bay,” Pascual said.
However, Pascual said that the road ahead is not spared from challenges. He said that the cost of power in the Philippines is a “major deterrent” to foreign investments, adding that “that’s something that we are addressing.”
In fact, the Trade chief illustrated the case of how manufacturing companies are dealing with the issue of power supply in the country.
“What’s happening now is some of the manufacturing companies that are setting up shop in the Philippines are putting up their own power supply within their own factory site and we’re giving incentives to those companies,” Pascual explained.
For one, he said, they have had “discussions with [Japan manufacturing firms] both in Tokyo and Manila about the incentives that we can grant to solar farms that they’re setting up, as a source of energy for their manufacturing operation.”
Image credits: Rey Baniquet/PNA
