By Alithea De Jesus
With the successful State visit of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to the United States to address the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), through its Trade and Investment Centers in New York and Washington, DC, and the Board of Investments organized a series of business meetings for the President.
Focusing on the Philippine top priority industry clusters in the Industrial and, Manufacturing, Transport cluster; Technology, Media, and Telecommunication cluster, the President held a roundtable and as well as one-on-one meetings with US companies with a major presence in the Philippines and/or with future expansion plans to the country.
From September 22-23, President Marcos, together with DTI Secretary Fred Pascual and the rest of the PH economic managers, conferred with the top executives in the sectors of IT-Business Process Management, Digital Infrastructure, Manufacturing, Logistics, and Wearables. Highlighting the strong and enduring ties between the Philippines and the United States, the President emphasized his administration’s strategy to partner with the private sector for the country’s industrialization and economic transformation.
He thanked US-based global companies that have made the Philippines their home for a long time now. Among these companies are Texas Instruments, MOOG, FedEx, Concentrix (which acquired Convergys), JP Morgan Global Service Center, and IBM. He invited them to be Government’s partners in the country’s economic growth.
The identified areas of partnership include improving the business climate, building the necessary physical infrastructure, and upskilling the workforce. The US companies cited the Philippines’ young, trainable human resources as a primary value proposition for the country in attracting foreign investment. DTI Secretary Fred Pascual pointed out that the workforce constitutes the country’s suprastructure.
President Marcos also underscored the recent strategic policy reforms and economic liberalization laws that will make it easier for foreign investors to do business in the country.
The US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF),in which the Philippines is participating, was cited as another platform by which US and Philippine business relations may be strengthened.
President Marcos encouraged the US companies to look at the Philippines equally as a valuable contributor to their global business growth and as a partner in rebuilding the economies of both the PH and the US. According to the President, building on the present political momentum, we must act early and quickly to make investments and new jobs happen in the Philippines.