American business leaders have maintained their interest in the Philippines as the government assured them of efforts to ensure ease of doing business.
"There is sustained interest from US businesses to invest in the Philippines," US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson said Tuesday, July 11.
Carlson's remark came after joining the Business Executives for National Security (BENS), a 10-member business group in the US, in meeting on Monday President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., who shared the Philippines' development plan toward holistic economic growth.
Marcos, according to Malacañang, discussed the government's efforts to make the country more attractive for investments, especially on digitalization of the economy, by amending some laws.
He also talked about ways the Philippines give importance to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
"We are trying to bring them into the system of digital marketing. So we put up an app for small business[es] to be able to use," Marcos said, referring to the 'Paleng-QR Ph Plus Initiative' that aims to prop up economic activities in the Philippines.
"We have encouraged all of these private NGOs who have had an interest in promoting start-ups. We are trying to create an environment that will be friendly to start-ups because we know that start-ups have higher rate of failure than other traditional businesses. So we need to be able to adjust to that new way of doing things," he added.
Marcos also cited the country's booming business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, which continued to operate even during the height of Covid-19. He said that "derives from the very clear understanding that many of the challenges that we face today the solutions lie in new technologies."
"That's why the retraining and re-skilling of our people have become important because we have to get them into that line of work so that we have enough people to occupy that," he said.
Members of the BENS expressed their gratitude to Marcos as they recognized his leadership in restoring the special and important alliance between the governments of the Philippines and the US.