By Monsi A. Serrano
Australian Ambassador HK has expressed admiration for the Philippines and said she said expects closer cooperation between Australia and the Philippines in trade and investment.
Speaking during the media reception held at her residence, Yu said she is very optimistic about the economic outlook for the Philippines and cited the country’s economic recovery and huge potential investments from Australia.
The Australian government will launch huge investments in the ASEAN region, pointing out that Australia has not aggressively expanded its investment to the huge market of 680 million in the 10-nation region and the Philippines can expect more investments from Australia given the investment-friendly economy of the current administration.
“I am very optimistic. I think the Philippines’ outlook economic is excellent,” the lady envoy said.
“We have seen a number of international organizations down the gray economics, and economic outlook for next year. But when you look at what’s happening to the rest of the global economy, I think to some extent, you know, those downgrades are fair enough. But still, Philippine economic growth is been strong and the outward has been strong. And on top of that, you have a very young and growing population.” she added.
“Economists will often say to you, the most important input to your economy is your population (people) and participation. So if you’ve got a young population then you’ve got a lot of reason for optimism.”
“We’ve seen very good signals from President Marcos about how serious he is in making the Philippines investment-friendly economy and those things are really working and you are starting to see significant foreign investment coming through and potential investors showing interest.”
“So my outlook for the Philippines is very positive. I’m optimistic that there will be a huge increase that is possible between ouR bilateral trade and investment,” Yu concluded.