President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has secured a total of $285 million in pledged investments from Malaysian business leaders for the Philippines after a three-day state visit on Thursday.
“The investments that we have agreed upon so far will inject a total of about $285 million, serving as a robust and affirmative indication of the ongoing trust and keen interest of businesses and investors in the Philippines,” Marcos said.
Marcos expressed gratitude to the Malaysian businessmen for their continued trust in the Philippines.
He mentioned that the Malaysian business leaders had a keen interest in investing in various sectors in the Philippines, such as the food processing industry, multi-service digital platforms, aviation, aviation maintenance support services, logistics, manufacturing, infrastructure, and water and wastewater treatment.
“I had the benefit of meeting a number of Malaysian businesses in key sectors such as agriculture, transportation, and technology,” Marcos added.
The insights from these meetings convinced him that the Philippines and Malaysia were moving in the right direction, with structural changes that would establish the Philippines as the ideal investment partner for Malaysian businesses.
Marcos emphasized that the Philippines has shown healthy signs of economic recovery amid the global challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by a 7.6% GDP growth registered last year.
He further highlighted that in the first quarter of this year, the Philippines outperformed its peers in the region by posting a GDP growth of 6.4 percent, which was within the country’s 6 to 7 percent target for the year.
“We put such emphasis on the growth figures because, while all countries have gone into debt due to the pandemic and the costs of the pandemic response, our fundamental theory is that we should grow out of that debt,” Marcos said.
In line with his administration’s goal of ensuring a conducive business environment for foreign investors, Marcos shared several business-related policies aimed at simplifying procedures and shortening processing periods to ensure ease of doing business in the Philippines.
“We have established green lanes to facilitate prospective investors in going through the necessary processes and documentary requirements while we await more amendments, especially in taxation, legislation, procurement, and accounting, which all need to be modernized,” Marcos explained.
Among the measures passed were the amendments to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act, the Foreign Investments Act, the Public Services Act, and the Renewable Energy (RE) Act. These amendments opened up sectors including air transport, telecommunications, shipping, retail, and renewable energy projects to foreign ownership.
“We have made our corporate taxation system more business-friendly with a lowered tax rate and improved mechanisms for tax and incentives. We will continue to seek ways to facilitate and expedite investments. Recently, we established green lanes for strategic investments as a means to establish a whole-of-government approach to facilitate, at the highest level, the critical investments necessary for the development and competitiveness of our economy,” Marcos said.
