Philippines earned P1.65 trillion from Duterte’s foreign trips—DOF

The government has realized huge returns for every centavo it spent on the foreign trips of President Duterte last year, according to computa­tions by the Department of Finance (DOF).

In all, Mr. Duterte’s over­seas trips in 2016 had raised a total of $33 billion or P1.65 trillion in committed invest­ments and loans; Juan de la Cruz spent only P270 million for those travels.

“That is equivalent to spending something like 17 centavos per every 1,000 pesos that he has raised in invest­ments and loans,” Finance

Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said in a press briefing at Malacañang. “For me that is a very significant figure. You know, sometimes when we talk of millions and billions, we forget the relationship, right? This is the relationship of the expenses of the President with regards to the benefits that he has been able to bring home or as the journalists like to say, ‘the bacon brought home’,” Dominguez said.

The DOF is currently ne­gotiating with Chinese officials regarding the $9 billion (P450 billion) in Official Develop­ment Assistance (ODA), as well as commercial loans that resulted from the trip to Chi­na.

He said the DOF was also discussing with the Japanese government in response to the announcement of Prime Min­ister Shinzo Abe during his recent visit to the Philippines that Japan has also committed $9 billion (P450 billion), give or take, in ODA and commer­cial loans.

Last Feb. 23, Malacañang reported that the government spent a total of P277.386 mil­lion for Mr. Duterte’s 12 for­eign trips last year.

Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella said that for the President’s Asean Summit working visit to Brunei Darus­salam, the Laos People’s Dem­ocratic Republic and Indo­nesia from Sept. 5 to 9, 2016, the government spent P29.876 million.

The Sept. 28 to 29 official working visit to Vietnam cost the government P14.082 mil­lion.

The state visit to Brunei Darussalam and China from Sept. 16 to 21, 2016, resulted in P45.266 million in expenses.

The Japan official visit on Oct. 25 to 27, 2016, cost P28.305 million; the official visit to Thailand and Malay­sia last November 9 to 10 cost P23.721 million; for the Asia Pacific Economic Coun­cil (Apec) meeting in Peru, including a layover in New Zealand, on November 17 to 23, the expense was pegged at P86.558 million; and the Dec. 13 to 16, 2016, Cambodia and Singapore state visits cost P4.9.578 million.

“The President made a to­tal of seven foreign trips, visit­ing a total of 12 countries since he took office. These visits in­curred a total of about P277 million in expenses, which included airfare, charter lease and others,” Abella said.

He said these official trips were part of the President’s obligation to maintain and strengthen diplomatic ties with neighboring countries.

He added that Mr. Dute­rte has clinched numerous economic investments and commitments amounting to billions of pesos that would generate thousands of jobs in the following years during those visits.

“The visit to China result­ed in more than 20 agreements with an estimated total value of $4 billion and will generate over a 100,000 jobs,” Abella said.

The agreements include a 50 million renminbi grant for drug-rehabilitation facilities and another 50 million ren­minbi million grant for law en­forcement-related equipment.

Meanwhile, he said the trip to Japan yielded about $1.85 billion worth of investment commitments that would gen­erate about 250,000 jobs in the next few years.

“There were also about five government-to-govern­ment agreements signed, in­cluding the exchange of notes and agreements up to $184 million,” Abella said.

Japan shipping firms to invest P14.5B

Three Japanese companies looking to invest some P14.5 billion in the Philippines made known their intention to invest after the President’s visit to Ja­pan, according to Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ra­mon Lopez.

He told reporters the Jap­anese shipbuilding company Tsuneishi was eyeing a P5-bil­lion ship-recycling facility that would use the latest interna­tionally accredited green tech­nology. The investment is ex­pected to generate some 6,000 jobs.

“Due to the very high quality of steel components of ocean-going vessels, the steel-recycling project will not only meet the country’s re­quirements for inter-island vessels for transport and lo­gistics but also cover the steel requirements of major infra­structure work,” he said.

This prospective proj­ect of Tsuneishi is on top of the P10.2-billion projects, a P5.2-billion skid barge and ship re-use center in Negros Occidental and a P5-billion biomass-fuel project in Mind­anao, committed by the com­pany during Mr. Duterte’s state visit.

The skid barge and ship re-use facility will create some 6,000 direct and indirect jobs while the biomass-fuel project is projected to add 20,000 jobs.

“We shall continue to co­operate with Tsuneishi in the setting up and operations of the three projects,” said Lopez.

Lopez met with Tsuneishi President Kenji Kawano during the Philippine Economic Fo­rum in Tokyo last Wednesday.

Aside from Kawano, the trade chief had discussions with Ichijo Ltd. President Tsuyoshi Miyachi, who re­vealed a P2-billion expansion project in Cavite.

Ichijo, manufacturer of prefabricated housing compo­nents, will construct a two-sto­ry factory and warehouse and create 600 additional jobs.

Currently, the company operates five facilities in its 100-hectare property at the Cavite Export Processing Zone with 25,000 employees.

Lopez also mentioned that almost 100 percent of Ichijo’s prefab housing components manufactured in the Philip­pines, its lone overseas manu­facturing facility, are exported to Japan.

With the competitiveness of its Philippine-made prod­ucts, Lopez encouraged Ichijo to also cater to the local market for quality and cost-effective mass housing.

“They might also be mar­ketable in the country. I also urged Ichijo to step up its re­search and development activ­ities in the country, as Filipinos are the country’s best resource and easily among the most tal­ented and hardworking in the world,” he added.

Lopez said another Japa­nese company, which declined to be named, is also targeting to invest about P7.5 billion, creating 20,000 jobs.

The Japanese company is already operating in the coun­try and the project is part of its expansion plan here.

China keen on Philippine ties

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua has also vowed to balance trade and investments with the Philippines.

During the recent Phil­ippine-China Investment Fo­rum, Zhao said that despite the long diplomatic relations of the two countries, bilateral trade and investments have re­mained moderate; the balance of trade favors China since the Philippines imports more products from China as well as invests more in China.

The Chinese envoy reit­erated that Mr. Duterte’s state visit last year has opened great opportunities for Manila and Beijing as both governments agreed for closer economic co­operation.

“We enter into new era of comprehensive development of our bilateral relations,” Zhao said.

“The essence of our bilat­eral relationship must lie into serving the mutual interest of our people,” he added.

In a span of seven months, China’s import of tropical fruits from the Philippines like banana, mango, and pineap­ple increased by $100 million, Zhao said.

He also said the two-way trade of China and the Philip­pines reached $47.2 billion last year, increasing by 3.3 percent from 2015’s figure.

He noted that China’s trade with other Asean mem­bers last year registered decre­ments, except for the Philip­pines.

“We are very confident about the relations of our two countries. Our bilateral and economic relations remained vigilant, resilient. China, de­spite those difficult years, Chi­na remains second trading partner of the Philippines,” the envoy said.

Moreover, Zhao said Chi­na was also eyeing to establish its first industrial park in the country.

China has eight industrial parks in Asean, but none in the Philippines.

“We will balance and in­vest more in the Philippines,” the envoy said.

He added that more Chi­nese tourists are also expected to visit the country this year.

The envoy also targets one million Chinese tourists to visit the Philippines at end- 2017.