Investment pledges to create over 200K jobs —Marcos

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday said several of the investment commitments that his administration has secured are already in motion and are expected to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs.

“A substantial number of investment pledges have already commenced operations, with many more at various stages of development,” Marcos said in his third State of the Nation Address (SONA).

“Sa bilang natin, bukod sa malaking kita para sa bansa, makakalikha ang mga ito ng mahigit dalawang-daan at dalawang libong trabaho para sa ating mga kababayan (In our estimate, apart from huge earnings for the nation, these could create over 200,000 jobs for our countrymen),” the President said.

As of the first half of 2024, the Board of Investments (BOI) reported that it secured a total of P950 billion worth of approved investment commitments, up 36% from P698 billion worth of investment pledges approved in the first semester of 2023. 

However, foreign direct investments (FDI) saw a decline of 36.9% in April to $556 million, from $881 million year-on-year. 

Despite the decline in FDIs, the Trade Department expressed optimism that the Philippine economy is still supported by foreign investors as the first four months FDI reached $3.5 billion, up from $3 billion in the same period in 2023.

The President also said that the rationalized incentives scheme under the CREATE Act “has also made possible the generation of investments amounting to more than one trillion pesos, and more than a hundred thousand new jobs.”

In 2023, the BOI reported that it has approved P1.16 trillion worth of investment pledges—the highest ever in the agency’s history. 

“This promising state of affairs is now beckoning us to create more — through the passage of the CREATE MORE Act,” Marcos said.

The CREATE MORE Act is among the priority measures list by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) last month.

The CREATE MORE or the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises to Maximize Opportunities for Reinvigorating the Economy (CREATE MORE) bill seeks to clarify the transitory provision in the CREATE law “by expressly exempting transitory registered business enterprises (RBEs) under the 5% gross income earned (GIE) regime from all national and local taxes, including value-added tax (VAT) and duty incentives.”

The CREATE MORE bill seeks to establish a streamlined tax refund system for RBEs and the institutionalization of a risk-based classification of claims and audit framework in a bid to improve the timeliness, efficiency, and predictability of the VAT refund process.—AOL, GMA Integrated News