GMA: Cash in on China

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—“Look at China with fresh eyes” in order to cash in on the country’s warming ties with the world’s second largest economy, former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urged businessmen on Friday.

“President Xi Jinping stated a policy of increased openness of an economy based on socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Arroyo told members of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce in Industry (PCCI).

“China is taking the path of globalization and cooperation, which will start in Asia and serve Asians first,” she told PCCI members who gathered here for the North Luzon Area Business Conference, hosted by the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

China’s rise

“As China completes the first 40 years of its domestic rise to become the world’s second largest and inevitably the world’s largest economy, it is now opening its economy even more than in the last 40 years and there are opportunities there,” said Arroyo, who had been charged with and cleared of graft for an allegedly anomalous but aborted broadband deal with Chinese telecommunications company ZTE.

Arroyo, who was elected to the board of directors of the Boao Forum for Asia in April, said China had been employing thousands of English teachers, a demand that, she noted, the Philippines is “well-positioned” to supply.

She said domestic jobs would also likely increase due to President Rodrigo Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program and his bid to reduce poverty incidence to 14 percent on strong cash flows.

Not shy

“I will not be shy about my role in the improved and sustained macro stability that is now providing the foundation for our takeoff,” she said.

“The main steam was to control fiscal deficit, increase revenues, cut expenses and leakages from inefficiency and pilferage, such as corruption, in order to create positive cash flows to be reinvested in the country’s economy,” she said.

Like the President, Arroyo said she also implemented tax reforms that became unpopular because of sharp rises in petroleum products.