Palace says Marcos' foreign trips generated $23.6-B investment pledges

Malacañang on Friday said President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s foreign visits this year have generated $23.6 billion of investment pledges.

Citing the accomplishment report of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Marcos’ state visits to Indonesia and Singapore, his working visit in the United States, as well as his participation in the ASEAN Summit in Cambodia and APEC in Thailand "brought billions of pesos in investments as the administration gears toward aggressively attracting more foreign businesses to come to the Philippines."

At the sidelines of these foreign trips, Marcos had meetings with the business communities of these countries to woo foreign investors.

Marcos earlier said several letters of intent and memorandums of understanding were signed with Indonesian and Singaporean investors for P804.78 billion worth of investments.

The Palace also said Marcos' working visit to New York in September would generate close to $4 billion worth of investments.

Marcos also invited Cambodian business leaders, who are in the sector of food and agriculture, to invest in the Philippines. The meeting between Marcos and the business leaders happened at the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit.

Thai companies, meanwhile, have expressed their intent to expand their presence in the Philippines, according to Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual at the sidelines of the APEC Summit.

On the other hand, the DTI also said in its report that its Board of Investments and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) had a combined approved investment of P402 billion, which could generate some 54,217 local jobs.

Under the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act, the BOI’s approved projects as of August this year was at P46.7 billion, with the investment board also assisting 1,994 investors wanting to do business in the country.

The BOI also generated 90 foreign investment leads with an estimated value of P204.9 billion that could result in 98,393 local jobs.—AOL, GMA Integrated News