A total of US$4.349 billion or P239 billion of the foreign investments from the overseas trip of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. since last year have started to “bear fruit.”
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Office of the Presidential Assistant on Investment and Economic Affairs (OPAIEA) made the report during their recent meeting with Marcos.
“I can already report that some of the MOUs that we signed in Indonesia and in Singapore, mayroon ng resulta (already have results). And in fact, I think in the next couple of weeks, we will be starting to inaugurate some of these projects already,” Marcos said after the meeting.
In a statement issued last Friday, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) disclosed the said “materialized” investments–those in various stages of implementation–were part of the 116 projects worth US$62.926 billion or PHP3.48 trillion, which were signed during seven presidential trips.
The include in Indonesia, US$8.48 billion; Singapore, US$6.54 billion; United States, US$3.847 billion; Thailand, US$4.62 billion; Belgium, US$2.20 billion; China, US$24.239 billion; and Japan, US$13 billion
Of the said amount, US$29.712B or P1.7 trillion have existing Memorandum of Understanding or Letters of Intent.
The remaining US$28.863 or P1.5 trillion is in the planning stage.
Investment obstacles
Marcos said he be converging the concerned government agencies to determine how to “take advantage of the contacts.”
Also to be discussed, he noted, will be how to address the “obstacles” in the implementation of the other investments despite the government’s already “liberalized” business laws and policies.
“It is now time for us to consolidate all of that and put it together and see what is needed for those projects to go forward. Marami kaming nakita na kailangan baguhin–Yung ating mga rules and regulations na kung minsan ay di sympathetic sa mga investor. (We saw a lot of things that needed to be changed–our rules and regulations, which are sometimes ‘unsympathetic’ to investors),” Marcos said in a video message posted by the PCO in its Facebook page last Friday.
Last week, the President announced the government will be putting up a “green lane” for foreign investors to make it easier for them to process business permits and licenses.
Image credits: Patrick Roque via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0