INVESTMENT. President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos leave for Davos, Switzerland leave on Jan. 15, 2022 for the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) from Jan. 15 to 20. Speaker Martin Romualdez on Thursday (Jan. 19) said Marcos is doing a yeoman’s job at the WEF in attracting more investments to the Philippines. (PNA photo by Rey Baniquet)
MANILA – Speaker Martin Romualdez on Thursday said President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is doing a yeoman’s job at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland in attracting more investments to the Philippines to boost the momentum of growth and improve the lives of the Filipino people.
Romualdez, who is part of the President’s official delegation to Davos, noted that the Chief Executive is hard at work, and seizing all the opportunities the WEF presented, to articulate the Philippine success story to the world leaders in business and government attending the forum.
“No less than Borge Brende, the President of the WEF, recognized the sustained effort President Marcos displayed in this forum to showcase the Philippines’ remarkable story and outline the path his administration is taking to welcome more foreign investments into our country,” Romualdez said.
The Speaker was referring to Brende’s comments in his one-on-one dialogue with Marcos, which is among the key events in the WEF.
“Mr. President Marcos, it’s great to have you here. I know you worked extremely hard today. I think I have seen you already three or four times and I know we have had so many sessions,” Brende said at the outset of their conversation.
The Speaker noted that like other attendees to the WEF, Brende was impressed with the performance of the Philippine economy despite the slowdown in many parts of the world.
“But even more importantly, the President was able to clearly convey his strategy for sustained growth and the peculiar advantages of the Philippines that would engender investor confidence in the realization of such objective,” Romualdez said.
In his conversation with Brende, Marcos said among the key factors for growth of the Philippine economy was the creation of jobs, particularly in the MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) which comprise about 99.5 percent of the businesses in the country.
As a result, Marcos said the unemployment rate now in the Philippines is even lower than it was before the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the unemployment rate in November last year declined to 4.2 percent from 4.5 percent in October 2022, and from 6.5 percent in November 2021, the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years.
Marcos said other areas of growth include business process outsourcing (BPO) companies that continued operation despite the pandemic, mining and semi-conductor export.
Likewise, Marcos credited the dollar remittances of overseas Filipino workers as among the key fuels for growth.
But more importantly, the President pointed out that the Philippines is blessed with the youngest workforce in Asia, with an average age of 23 and one-half years old, who are well-trained, sophisticated, English-speaking and equally tech savvy as their counterparts in other countries in the world.
This is the reason, according to President Marcos, why he is confident the Philippines can achieve its target growth rate of 6.5 percent or even surpass it, despite fears of global slowdown
Earlier, International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva told Marcos during their bilateral meeting that IMF found the Philippines to be an “exceptionally well-performing country” despite the turbulence in the past years.
She expressed the readiness of the IMF to help its member countries, including the Philippines, in achieving sustainable growth and pushing for economic policies that would benefit more Filipinos. (PNA)
