Growth sustainable despite foreign ownership cap – CCPI

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine economy and its foreign direct investment inflow could do well in the coming decades even without the need of scrapping the current foreign land ownership limits, the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands (CCPI) said.

CCPI president Jose Luis Yulo Jr. told The STAR the country is well positioned for growth in the coming years and altering constitutional provisions on land ownership may even bring more harm than good.

Yulo said CCPI, the country’s oldest business organization, is against revising the current 60-40 provision in the Constitution that allows 40 percent foreign ownership of land and allow 100 percent foreign ownership.

“In China, no foreigner can own land, in Thailand and in Japan as well. So what is the relationship of foreign land ownership to the economy? Zero. Foreigners are just saying this (that it would improve the economy) because they want to buy our land. The bottom line is, are we going to be a slave in our own country for the foreign investments but not understanding what it means?” Yulo said.

“There are many Filipinos that do not have their own land at present and you will even give them to foreigners. In America, foreigners can buy land. Why? Because they have vast areas of land and they want to develop all of their undeveloped land. That is not the case here in the Philippines wherein we are already very crowded,” he added.

According to Yulo, CCPI welcomes foreign investments to the country but not to the extent of giving majority ownership of land.

He said CCPI wants an economy effectively controlled by Filipinos, while being open to foreign participation.

“We need to identify what are the critical areas that you should not give up,” Yulo said.

Several foreign and local business groups have said certain provisions of the 1987 Constitution, particularly in the rule that puts a 40 percent cap on foreign ownership, have prevented the country’s foreign investment inflow from reaching its full potential.

These business groups believe that attracting massive amounts of foreign investments is among the best means by which to create employment opportunities in the country.

Yulo, however, said increasing the country’s FDI does not rely solely on relaxing its foreign ownership limits.

He said one of the surest means of improving the country’s attractiveness as a business destination is by improving its poor infrastructure.

“At this point we are already way behind. So we do not do a catch up. What we need to do with our infrastructure is to copy the best in the world. We don’t have to reinvent it. We just look at the top three airports, for example, and then copy it, but add disaster prevention features because we have here earthquakes and typhoons,” Yulo said.