Cover of the World Business Outlook Fall 2021 Survey of the German-Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry
MANILA – There is an increase in the number of German companies operating in the Philippines saying their businesses are in a“good situation”, the German-Philippines Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (GPCCI) World Business Outlooks (WBO) Fall 2021 Survey said.
With a total of 74 respondents, the GPCCI conducted the WBO Fall 2021 Survey from September 21 to October 15 when restrictions due to threats of the Delta variant started to ease.
The survey said 32 percent of German firms were in “good situation” during the said period, 47 percent said their situation is “satisfactory”, and 20 percent are in “bad situation”.
This was an improvement from the Spring 2021 result, which was conducted between March 18 and April 19 when the government reimposed the restrictive enhanced community quarantine to manage the cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) Alpha variant.
In the Spring 2021 survey, 21 percent of firms said they were in a “good situation”, 47 answered “satisfactory”, and 29 percent considered that they were in “bad situation”.
“The lesser numbers in the daily active cases of Covid-19 and the graduation of major areas to a more liberal alert level presents a promising outlook for our survey respondents,” GPCCI executive director Christopher Zimmer said.
The number of companies with an optimistic outlook for the next 12 months was also higher in the latest survey.
Fifty-seven percent of the respondents said they expect business conditions to be better for the next 12 months from only 29 percent with an optimistic business outlook during the Spring 2021 survey.
About 40 percent said business conditions would remain the same in the Fall Survey from 62 percent in the previous survey.
A lesser number of businesses expected worse business conditions in the next 12 months at 3 percent in the Fall 2021 survey from 9 percent in the Spring 2021 survey.
However, potential issues arising from travel restrictions and supply chain concerns hold back business sentiments.
“We still observe that key foreign nationals of both incoming and existing companies in the Philippines still experience problems coming in as entry measures and requirements remain rigorous, time-consuming, and burdensome,” Zimmer said.
Zimmer added the GPCCI has urged the Philippine government to immediately resolve the concerns on travel restrictions, which was also aired by other foreign businessmen, as this affects their operations and investment plans here.
Based on the survey, 51 percent of companies said they have canceled or postponed their investments.
“An interesting amount of potential to ramp up the Philippine economy can be observed in the coming days as certain economic reform measures such as the Amendments to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act and Foreign Investments Act are seen to be signed into law. Therefore, we ask the Philippine government to immediately look at how we can resolve existing concerns of companies so they will be able to help the recovery of the country’s economy even before 2022,” GPCCI president Stefan Schimtz said. (PNA)
