Acting Trade Secretary Cristina Roque said the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will continue to aggressively promote the Philippines as an investment hub to foreign investors.
“For the international trade, we will be really pushing aggressively and very intensively the international investors, and attract international investors,” Roque told a Malacañang forum on Thursday.
Roque said a number of foreign investors cite the Philippines’ young and dynamic population as an advantage in investing in the country.
“I’ve met a lot of businessmen abroad and they really wanted to invest in the Philippines, you know why? Because of our strong population – we are 115.6 million Filipinos, so that alone is a big buying power for this people in the international investment,” she added.
Roque said the government’s trade cluster, which includes the Board of Investments (BOI), the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and the DTI, will continue to work with Secretary Frederick Go, the Presidential Adviser on Investments and Economic Affairs.
In June, the DTI reported that US$19 billion worth of projects are now in its investment promotion agencies (IPAs). These were part of the investment pledges from the various overseas trips of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
The actualized investments cover 65 projects of which 12 have already commenced operations; 21 have registered with the BOI and PEZA; and 32 are processing their respective registration with DTI’s IPAs. | PND
