Foreign investors slowly losing interest in PHL

CEBU, Philippines - Foreign direct investors’ (FDIs) impression of the Philippines is slowly weaning as the government has failed to address their clamor for changes in policies. 

“At the outset, investors’ confidence rose significantly with the new leadership in the government. But as shown in recent months, most foreign investors are not impressed of the changes made by the Pnoy government,” said global strategist Brian To.

According to To, the current leadership is more focus on changing some policies, but not on changing the culture. No changes at all,” he said.

Although, he said that President Benigno Aquino III may have good intention to improve the economy and introduce changes to some “sick” policies, but the Filipinos should be more pro-active in looking at who are the people surrounding the President and giving him “hollow” advices.

He said now is the most critical turning point of the Philippines, as the world is moving too fast, “everybody else is moving forward in rapid pace. Its difficult to search for answers if you don’t know the question.”

Corporate leadership is what the Philippine government is needing. To said the Philippines has already fallen in all areas of opportunity, therefore it should act and find out its direction now, otherwise the country’s golden opportunities will ultimately be wasted.

Aside from putting more money to improve the educational system to sustain the country’s competitiveness, To said the government should also look at the macro-economic observation that its economy should not put too much dependency on the remittance of the OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers).

Sooner or later, he said if the Philippines will not act on improving its next generation human resource (HR) capital, this particular niche will be snatched by other countries which are now investing considerable amount of money to boost its human resource capital, specifically powerhouse India and China.

Domestically, he said the Philippines has to further develop good talent pool, with high educational backgrounds in order to attract FDIs to come, as this is one of the remaining niches that the Philippines can well compete with (in the short term).

Meanwhile, Canadian Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines (CanCham) president Julian Payne warned recently that the Philippines need to take serious stance in addressing its low competitiveness issue, otherwise FDIs will continue to see negative impression about the country’s attractiveness as investment site, despite its huge potential.

According to Payne although domestic investors are getting stronger now, the Philippines still need to attract FDIs, because of technology and investment they bring in to the country, as well as employment and huge revenues.

Despite the pronouncements made by the current administration to address the bureaucracy and some complicated business processes, doing business in the Philippines is still more difficult compared to other countries.

“The Philippines has incredible potential, but competitiveness should improve. Make the country more accessible to foreign investors,” Payne said.  (FREEMAN)