President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (left) and US President Joe Biden (right) (Photo courtesy of PBBM's official Facebook page)
MANILA – House Speaker Martin Romualdez on Friday (Manila time) said Philippine-US ties will continue to remain strong following the meeting between US President Joe Biden and President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
“The productive meeting augurs well for the overall relations between our two countries,” Romualdez said.
“The US is a major partner and ally of the Philippines in the areas of economic, defense, cultural, and investment cooperation. I can see the meeting fostering an improved bilateral partnership in those areas,” he added.
Romualdez also reiterated anew Marcos' call for American investors to do more business in the Philippines.
The President earlier told US businessmen that he could not imagine the future of the Philippines without the US as its partner.
“We need more investments to create jobs and income and improve the lives of our people. As President Bongbong Marcos has said, we now have an improved investment climate in the Philippines,” Romualdez said.
He pointed out that there are a number of areas where US companies could invest, including manufacturing, railways and other infrastructure, power generation, and private-public partnership projects, among others.
According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the country’s major sources of foreign direct investments (FDIs) are Singapore, Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands.
The BSP reported record high FDI inflows of USD10.518 billion in 2021 - surpassing the previous high of USD10.3 billion in 2017 - which it said reflected an improvement in investor sentiment as the country started to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The central bank also reported that FDIs between January and May this year had amounted to USD4.2 billion, up 18.8 percent from the level recorded over the same period last year.
Despite the improvement in FDI inflows, Romualdez said the Philippines needs more investments from the US and its other economic partners.
“We have to attract more foreign capital because we are a bigger market than other smaller nations in our region,” he said. (PNA)
