MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino would visit the United States for four days next month to attract investors into the country.
Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima has already laid the ground work of the visit.
Mr. Aquino’s priority destination would be the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He would also witness the signing of the $434-million grant of the Millennium Challenge Corp. to the Philippine Development Foundation.
Mr. Aquino said job generation is the government’s primary objective in attracting investors.
“Job generation is the first priority and America is still one of our biggest trading partners. We will go there and try to make the country even more attractive to all of these investors in the hopes of generating all those jobs,” he said.
The President plans to attract Filipino-Americans who have established businesses in the US.
“Because there are Filipinos and Americans of Filipino descent who are into venture-capital industries and they are movers and shakers of that industry.
They find it difficult to invest in the Philippines primarily because we lack the human resources to meet the needs of industries in that category,” he said.
He said he is meeting with the Philippine Development Foundation to discuss ways of growing the country’s information database of engineers and scientists.
Mr. Aquino said it has not been determined if the status of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the US would be discussed with US officials during his visit.
The Philippine Senate has passed a resolution to abolish the VFA or renegotiate it.
Aquino, during his term as senator, was among those who signed the agreement.
Other priority trips identified by the Department of Foreign Affairs for the President are the Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels, Belgium as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.
China and Japan, two other large trading partners of the country, also requested visits from Aquino.