The United States-Philippine Society (USPS) has urged American business ventures to invest in the infrastructure sector of the Philippines because of the “strong human infrastructure” that the country can offer.
USPS President John Maisto said that despite the Philippines being an economically developing nation, it boasts of having a firm human infrastructure that constitutes sectors such as health, education and nutrition.
“The Philippines builds on its strong human infrastructure. In our view, that is what the Philippines can offer,” Maisto said as reported by The Philippine Star.
The society president noticed that there are only a few investments from the U.S. He believes that the first-world country should engage in more business negotiations particularly in the infrastructure sector of the Philippines.
“There’s not as much infrastructure investment from the U.S. as there could be. Our estimate is there should be,” Maisto said during a press conference.
Aside from the infrastructure sector, the U.S.-Philippines business group also targets sectors such as energy, clothing manufacturing, information technology (IT) and tourism as investment options.
The said business group also pushes for the drafting of a U.S.-Philippines free trade agreement (FTA). USPS co-chair John Negroponte claimed that there is a good chance that the two countries would agree on an FTA.
This idea was supported by USPS co-chair and businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan noting the benefits that the country would gain should the Philippines decide to enter an FTA with the United States government.
“I think this is something the Philippines should seriously consider taking up because the U.S. is one of the big markets available to us,” Pangilinan said.
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo earlier said that the Philippine government is currently anticipating whether the U.S. Congress would express any intent in the matter so they could commence on discussing the provisions of the FTA.
In order to start the drafting of an FTA, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative must formally notify the U.S. Congress of its intent to push for a bilateral trade agreement.
In July 2018, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer reportedly expressed his intent to commence a U.S.-Philippines trade deal before the U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee.
According to the USPS, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act in 2018 to be able to provide infrastructure investment from the U.S. in emerging markets backed by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Build Build Build program delay
The talks of American investments surfaced with the Philippines’ P8-9 trillion infrastructure plan known as the Build Build Build (BBB) program that aims to repair the country’s dilapidated infrastructure and supercharge economic growth.
However, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said that the program, commonly dubbed as aggressive and ambitious would be slightly delayed due to lack of manpower. The president urged the Filipino people to help in the 75 flagship projects under the BBB.
“Kaya ‘yang Build, Build, Build medyo atrasado nang kaunti. Walang trabahante. Eh, marami tayong Pilipino. Kung wala naman hindi naman tayo magtulungan, eh ‘di wala (That’s why the Build, Build, Build program has been slightly delayed. There’s a labor gap. There are many Filipinos. If we don’t help each other, nothing will happen),” Duterte said. (AJPress)
