Palace says Marcos’ trips yield P4 trillion in investments

Screengrab from RTVM

Malacañang on Tuesday provided what could be the most tangible benefit of President Marcos’ globetrotting: P4.02 trillion, or $72.18 billion, worth of investments from his 19 foreign trips since assuming office on June 30 last year.

Citing data from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Velicaria Garafil said the figure represented the consolidated and processed investments as of Dec. 21 covering 148 projects.

Of that amount, $28.53 billion, or P1.59 trillion, was covered with signed memorandums of understanding/letters of intent (MOUs/LOIs), and P1.52 trillion, or $27.34 billion, constituted confirmed investments not covered by MOUs/LOIs still in the planning stage.

The DTI report added that there were also signed agreements with clear financial project value amounting to P544.15 billion or $9.77 billion; P282.8 billion or $5.08 billion worth of investments in projects being registered with the different investment promotion agencies (IPA); P54.75 billion or $983.2 million in ventures already registered with IPAs, and P11.4 billion or $205.5 million in additional investments in existing IPA-registered projects.

Attractive sectors

“These investments, realized and in the pipeline, are mostly in the sectors of manufacturing, IT-BPM (information technology and business process management), renewable energy, data centers and telecommunications,” Garafil said, quoting the DTI.

There were investments worth P22.24 billion ($400 million) in the telecommunications sector; P13.9 billion or $250 million in semiconductor and electronics; P1.11 billion ($20 million) in pharmaceutical and health care; P111.2 million ($2 million) in artificial intelligence for weather forecasting; and P16.68 million ($300,000) in renewable energy.

The DTI said it was also monitoring 20 projects that have been approved and registered with the IPAs of the DTI, the Board of Investments and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority.

The DTI said the President secured nine investments worth $263.08 million or P14 billion from his trip to Japan this December for the Asean-Japan Commemorative Summit.

During his trip to the United States for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting in San Francisco in November, Mr. Marcos got P37.2 billion or $672.3 million in investment pledges.

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