FDI to exceed $10B in 2019 – Joint Foreign Chambers
Credit to Author: TYRONE JASPER C. PIAD| Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2019 16:20:02 +0000
Foreign direct investments (FDI) should top $10 billion this year, the Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC) said on Thursday, with the Philippines expected to remain an attractive destination amid “continued political and economic stability.”
“Increasingly, the Philippines is being recognized by foreign multinational firms, as well as smaller foreign companies, as a country on the road to realizing its high potential to be among the top tier of economies globally,” the JFC said in a statement.
FDI over the past two years hit $10 billion per annum, it noted, higher than the $7.93 billion and $5.64 billion recorded in 2016 and 2015, respectively, and due mainly to intercompany borrowings.
The JFC also took note of the Philipine economy’s growth since 1998 and said the country was expected to notch the third largest GDP in Asean, next to Indonesia and Thailand, by 2023.
It expects infrastructure to remain a main growth driver, noting that “the ‘Build Build Build’ program continuing policies of the previous administrations has achieved much higher levels of public sector spending on infrastructure, without which the economy would regress”.
Amid a trade war between US and China and “rising costs” in the latter, the JFC expects a boom for the manufacturing industry as new investors might “locate in the Philippine export zones.”
While international tourism is “growing steadily,” it noted, airport and road congestion remain an issue and the Philippines is still lagging its neighbors.
The creative sector, meanwhile, was described as the country’s “newest sunrise industry.”
The JFC called for “major agricultural reforms” to “unlock higher growth for the rural sector … where 30 percent of the population and 70 percent of poorer Filipinos live and work.”
The outsourcing sector, meanwhile, is expected to face “challenges of rapid automation, available skills and altered fiscal incentives.”
Mining is being hampered by controversies relating to matters of environment and social responsibility, the JFC noted.
The Philippines, it said, should work to increase access to foreign markets, including “initiating talks to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) as well as for a trade and investment agreement with the United States,” it added.
The CPTPP is a free trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
The JFC also called on legislators to pass the Foreign Investment Act, Open Access in Data Transmission bill, Public Services Act and the Retail Trade Act, among others, to further boost foreign direct investments.
The post FDI to exceed $10B in 2019 – Joint Foreign Chambers appeared first on The Manila Times Online.