House leaders laud JDV’s role in new China investments

Two senior House leaders hailed Speaker Jose de Venecia’s efforts to convince the Chinese government to invest some $763 million in the Philippines through export-import contracts.

"This is a significant step in economic diplomacy," Cebu City Rep. Antonio Cuenco, who heads the House committee on foreign relations, said.

According to Quirino Rep. Junie Cua, chair of the House trade and industry committee, De Venecia "helped catalyze" the investment contracts.

In a joint statement, the two congressmen commended the Speaker for his "initiative and economic diplomacy" that resulted in multimillion-dollar investments from Chinese leader Zhang Dejang who visited Manila this month.

Zhang, the secretary general of the Communist Party in Guangdong province, signed, along with some 550 other business delegates, investment and export-import contracts with their Filipino counterparts.

De Venecia said follow-through business could push the total investment to over $1 billion. Guangdong’s annual international trade exceeds $400 billion and accounts for one-third of China’s annual trade with the country.

The agreements include contracts in coconut oil, food, garments, mining, motor engines, pharmaceuticals, electronics and gas. These were signed by leaders of 183 Guangdong firms with 800 Filipino business leaders.

De Venecia has also proposed that China help Filipinos increase the yield and varieties of more than 250,000 hectares of Philippine fishponds with "new crops of high-value fish to complement our bangus and tilapia."

"We should have more of De Venecia’s bold economic diplomacy to attract more foreign investments. This will help strengthen overall economic performance this year, despite the series of political crises we have been through," Cuenco and Cua, both allies of the Speaker in the administration party, said.

The investments, they added, are likely to further bolster the country’s economic turnaround.