MANILA – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has invited Indian players in the pharmaceutical industry to tap business opportunities in the Philippines as the two countries target to strengthen cooperation.
The DTI urged them to participate in manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients, vaccines, and essential medicines, as well as establishing facilities for research and development for herbal medicine.
“The Philippines still has a traditional view of India. This mindset has to change given the vast opportunities for collaboration that remain untapped,” DTI Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo said in a statement Tuesday.
The Philippines and India held its 13th Joint Working Group on Trade and Investments (JWGTI) meeting and identifying sectors where both countries aim to strengthen cooperation.
The DTI said the online JWGTI meeting was concluded last Sept. 17. The meeting was led by Rodolfo and Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce of India Anant Swarup.
The two countries aim to focus future initiatives to foster synergies in sectors of textiles and electronics for smart manufacturing and digital technologies, as well as integrated circuit (IC) design and electronics system design manufacturing.
Being the top countries for information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO), the Philippines and India also target to boost cooperation on telemedicine, health information management, software development, and IT solutions and online learning.
They also included energy and agriculture sectors as priorities for future partnerships.
Swarup said Manila and New Delhi have yet to harness the full potential of their bilateral trade.
“Both sides share in each other’s total trade is negligible, from only about 0.3 to 1 percent, hence the full potential of the relations is yet to be reached,” Swarup said.
Total trade between the two countries reached USD2.4 billion in 2019.
India was the 14th largest trade partner for the country last year.
Investments from Indian companies also reached PHP915.64 million. (PNA)
