Over 250 investment leads seen to be realized this year

MANILA, Philippines — Over 250 investment leads in various sectors including manufacturing, telecommunication services and renewable energy are seen to materialize within the year until next year, according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

“We have a list of about over 250 investment leads that shall be coming in and will be generating new jobs moving forward,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said in a press conference yesterday.

The investments are expected to come in before June this year.

The investments are expected to be made in the following sectors: electronics manufacturing services; automotive and auto parts, electric vehicles, mineral processing or battery manufacturing; integrated steel mill; telecommunication services and digital infrastructure; renewable energy; knowledge process outsourcing or business process outsourcing; healthcare information technology and business process management; integrated agriculture production or processing; logistics and garments and textiles.

“Many of these investments were actually just postponed and delayed during the pandemic when they could not visit the site, they could not finalize the investment decisions because of the quarantine requirements and it was a discouragement on their part to pursue their visit in the Philippines,” Lopez said.

He expressed hope there would be no new surge in COVID infections so the investment leads can proceed.

In the same event, he said the DTI would pursue trade agreements or arrangements in the remaining months of the current administration.

In particular, the DTI would continue to push for the ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, which creates the world’s largest free trade area.

RCEP, which has been ratified by President Duterte, still needs concurrence from the Senate.

The Congress is currently on break and will resume session on May 23.

“We hope all the remaining questions that some senators would have, would have been settled by that time. We continue to offer a briefing, one-on-one briefing or group briefing to the Senate for them to be clarified of issues being raised by some sectors especially from the agriculture sector,” Lopez said.

He said Agriculture Secretary William Dar has also given his commitment of continuous support for the agriculture sector, which is among those with concerns on the agreement.

“The problem is not in RCEP. The RCEP has not included new sensitive agricultural products in that negotiation precisely because we wanted to avoid all these issues. Nevertheless, we will continue to inform the Senate about this,” he said.

He said the DTI also expects the Philippine-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA) to be signed, as negotiations have been completed in October last year.

“The current administration of South Korea continues to welcome the FTA arrangement. So it is just a matter of scheduling the signing of the Philippine-South Korea FTA,” he said.

Under the FTA, the banana industry is expected to benefit from the reduction of tariff for banana exports entering South Korea to zero in five years.

He said the country is also set to sign investment protection agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Israel as well as Taiwan.