BALI, Indonesia, (PNA) — President Benigno S. Aquino III will invite the international business community to “take a look and invest further in the Philippines” during his attendance to the 21st Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit that is being held here, Communications Development and Strategic Planning Secretary Ramon Carandang said on Saturday.
In a press briefing, Carandang told reporters that the President, who will arrive here on Sunday (October 6) will take all opportunities to showcase the Philippines as the best investment location in the region in order to drive up economic progress further.
He said the President will highlight the reforms implemented by his administration to weed out corruption in government and which in turn has increased confidence in the country.
“We’re going to be talking about inclusive growth. President Aquino is going to talk to the international business community and other world leaders. We are going to be showing that the reforms we have undertaken over the last three years have borne a lot of fruit in terms of increased confidence in the Philippine economy and the management of the economy,” Carandang said.
And as usual, we will be asking people to come take a look and further invest in the Philippines. As you know, we’ve seen rapid growth in the last three years but we are not happy that the growth has not as inclusive as we want. We have social interventions and you know all about it: healthcare, education, CCT (conditional cash transfer), but we feel that we need to make a bigger push for investments because investments is really what is going to sustain the economic momentum that we have,” he added.
“So, as always, the President is going to take every opportunity to meet with world leaders and international business community to push for investments in the Philippines,” Carandang further said.
He declined to enumerate which particular investment was being targeted by the President but said that “there are always good prospects.”
“Even when the President does not go overseas, you have the economic team going overseas, and they have been doing this throughout the year. So really we do hope to be able to push for more investments for the coming years,” Carandang said.