Top officials of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 explored areas of cooperation with representatives of 21 business firms in the United States on Wednesday, May 26, to help the country improve its pandemic response and jumpstart the nation's economic recovery.
In a statement, the NTF said Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. and Deputy Chief Implementer Vince Dizon discussed strategies with the international business community during the 2021 Virtual Business Mission to the Philippines of the US-ASEAN Business Council.
The NTF said Galvez proposed possible areas of collaboration during the virtual meeting, particularly in securing more vaccine doses from US-based manufacturers.
The country received 193,050 doses of US-made Pfizer vaccines through the donations from the COVAX facility that arrived on May 10. Millions of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are expected to be delivered in June.
The NTF added that Galvez has addressed concerns raised by companies regarding the inoculation of essential frontliners which the businessmen hoped would include economic sectors and frontline employees.
The government is prioritizing the inoculation of A1 to A3 priorities: frontline healthcare workers, senior citizens, and persons with co-morbidities. Galvez had said that the vaccination of economic frontliners (A4) may start in June.
Meanwhile, Dizon stressed that the support of the private sector in the government's pandemic response "is crucial" as it kept the country afloat despite the devastating effects of lockdowns in the economy.
He also thanked the Council and its members for investing into that Build, Build, Build infrastructure program of the Duterte administration, as well as the development projects in Clark, Pampanga.
The US firms were also encouraged by Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez to invest in the New Clark City as a potential location for vaccine manufacturing and a distribution and logistics hub for the Asian market.
For the Council's part, Michael Michalak, senior vice president and regional managing director of the US-ASEAN Business Council, expressed support to the government's COVID-19 intervention programs to boost vaccine preparedness, vaccine confidence, and testing in the country.
These measures, he noted, would "help fast track the opening up of the various sectors of ASEAN member-states' economies."
Council officials also commended the NTF for the "effective manner in which it has responded to the challenges brought about by the pandemic," the NTF said.
The US-ASEAN Business Council is a leading advocacy group that aims to foster economic growth and trade ties between the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)'s ten member-countries including the Philippines.