Senator JV Ejercito Lauds FDI Rating, Pushes for Economic Legislations

Senator JV Ejercito welcomes the significant improvement to the country's Foreign Direct Investments. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that the country's FDIs last year surged to an all-time high of $6.2 billion, increasing by 65.9% from the $3.7 billion net inflows in 2013.

The Chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee said that this is a very good indication of sustained confidence from foreign investors.

However, Ejercito noted that the Philippines still remains behind our ASEAN neighbors. He said that the inflow of FDIs for last year was incomparable with that of Singapore ($58.202 billion), Indonesia ($19.219 billion) and Thailand ($14.064 billion).

"This big difference is brought by the respective foreign policies in each country. Thailand for instance, decided to liberalize foreign ownership as early as 1986." Ejercito said.

"If we follow the example set by other developing countries, we can greatly improve our economic position and keep up with the others." the Economic Affairs Committee Chair added.

Senator Ejercito has been pushing for a liberalized foreign policy. Among the bills he prioritizes in the committee are Senate Bills 1424 and 2517. SB 1424 hopes to shorten the Foreign Investment Negative List by excluding the practice of professions from the list and SB 2517 aims to liberalize investment activities and areas which significantly contribute to industrialization and socioeconomic development. These investment activities include lending, adjustment and financing which are governed by specific laws.

"I am optimistic that we can improve our position. The committee is doing its best to work on measures that will encourage more FDIs to maximize the opportunities from the upcoming ASEAN Economic Integration." Ejercito said.