This was revealed to The STAR by newly designated ECC chairman and Finance Secretary Jose T. Pardo who explained that such a policy may be more attractive to big investors.
Pardo said the ECC is also setting up a sort of clearing house/express lane for big investors to help facilitate their investments into the country.
Big investors would, thus, not have to deal with several agencies, but would instead have individual agents/facilitators to assist them set up their investments.
Those with specific needs would be given a package that would be tailor-made and would not be forced to comply with rules and regulations and incentives that do not give them the most benefits.
Such a proposal has already been made for information technology (IT) investments in terms of lower taxes that would attract more IT companies to relocate to the Philippines instead of India, which is the country’s prime competitor.
The ECC has already created a sort of super investment body that would deal only with big investments amounting to P50 million and above.
The super investment body would fall under the supervision of the Department of Finance instead of the Board of Investments.
Finance Undersecretary Lily Gruba has been designated in-charge of the legal aspects of the new super investment body.
The BOI, Pardo said, would continue to oversee all other investments falling below P50 million.
The government is seriously attending to the business of attracting more foreign investments following the steep decline in such foreign inflows.
The government urgently needs to attract big foreign investments this year to plug a burgeoning budget deficit.