March 11, 2024
MANILA – House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez said on Sunday that the Philippines is on the right track towards recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the country’s netting of $14.2 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) projects since July 2022.
According to Romualdez, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s overseas trips are “yielding results” and said that the Philippines is “making steady progress.”
“Executing $14.2 billion in FDIs from the projected total of $72.2 billion is significant, and there are many more projects in the pipeline,” Romualdez said in a statement, citing data from the Board of Investments and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
“We aim to gradually enhance the economy to its full potential, so that the rising tide will lift all our boats, so to speak,” he said.
Romualdez also said that the FDI projects are already at “different stages” of construction as of December 2023, with some already “operating and/or having completed the process of registering the project with DTI’s Investment Promotion Agencies.”
The FDIs, his statement added, include projects in several industries including manufacturing, information and technology – business process management (IT-BPM), renewable energy, infrastructure, transport and logistics, agriculture, and retail.
Among these projects, Romualdez noted that manufacturing has the largest share in terms of the number of projects with 16, followed by IT-BPM with 10, and renewable energy with nine.
Meanwhile, House of Representatives Senior Deputy Speaker, Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr., said that the President would have obtained more foreign investments if the foreign ownership of businesses in the Philippines were not restricted by the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution.
“I think this is one reason why he has been seriously pushing for the amendment of the restrictive economic provisions. The lifting of foreign equity and ownership limitations will strengthen the investment mission part of his foreign trips,” he said.
Recent foreign trips
In 2023 alone, the President visited Tokyo in Japan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Honolulu in the United States, and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
Marcos and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos recently returned to the Philippines after two back-to-back trips to Australia in late February and early March upon the invitation of Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
According to Gonzales, the Chief Executive’s most recent trip in Melbourne, Australia allowed him to secure 12 business agreements worth P86 billion.