MANILA, Philippines — Despite huge challenges it faces, the Philippines carries a lot of potential and can improve its already robust economic performance, according to US Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim.
According to Kim, the Philippines has a lot of potential as a country since it has a young, hardworking and English-speaking population and great natural resources.
"The Philippines like many other countries faces some huge challenges [such as] infrastructure. But I also sense that there is tremendous potential here in the Philippines," Kim said in an interview in ANC's Early Edition.
Kim said that the Philippine economy could still perform better, and he hoped that the United States would be a "key partner" in this development.
He said that the focus of the government of President Rodrigo Duterte on infrastructure was an "important initiative" which he said he hoped to be started soon.
"I always encourage US companies to think about business opportunities here in the Philippines. Likewise I think it will be good for Philippine industry to look for opportunities in the United States," the envoy said.
The Philippines under Duterte is embarking on a massive infrastructure program aimed at improving the country's decrepit roads, railways, sea and airports which have been blamed for the humongous traffic jams regularly seen in the capital and its surrounding provinces.
The American envoy also doused fears that the US economy would restrict its global trade initiatives following American President Donald Trump's so-called "America First" policy. Kim said that the US was still the "most open economy anywhere" and still supportive of trade, but one which is fair to all parties.
"We want to promote trade, but what we are looking for is fair and reciprocal trade," he said, adding that he regularly convinced American businessmen to explore the Philippines as a possible investment destination.
READ: Infra spending to boost GDP
Aside from economic relations, Kim also talked about the assistance that the US had been providing to the Philippines.
He said that the United States Agency for International Development had been providing the country with assistance in health, education, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance and governance.
He added that the American government was particularly interested in helping the Philippines rebuild Marawi City, a southern Philippine city recently the scene of five months of intense clashes between security forces and militants who wanted to transform the lakeside town into the center of the Islamic State group's province in Southeast Asia.
The US envoy said that Washington had already provided P750 million in aid that should help address short-, medium- and long-term needs in the battle-scarred Islamic city.
He also stressed the importance of countering recruitment efforts of militants who might try to exploit the resentment that young people and residents might feel following the destruction of their hometown.
Kim said that American and Filipino experts were already designing programs that would counter efforts by militants to convince affected residents to join their ranks.
"It's important to ensure that these young people are able to make smart decisions and are able to resist evil people trying to recruit them for evil purposes," he said.
READ: US sends water, anti-TB meds to families displaced from Marawi
Kim was appointed in November last year at the height of Duterte's public vitriolic attacks against the US after Washington aired its concern of the brutality of the chief executive's war against illegal drugs.
Relations between the treaty allies have generally calmed down in recent months as the Trump administration has largely refrained from issuing public rebukes of drug war and the country's human rights record, to the disappointment of human rights groups and activists.