The Senate has ratified the bicameral conference committee report on the bill that would open up the Philippines to more foreign investors.

Senate of the Philippines plenary hall (Senate PRIB)

Senators on Monday, September 20, approved the bicam report which reconciled the disagreeing provisions of the Senate Bill No. 1840 and House Bill No 59, which both seek to amend the 20-year-old "Retail Trade Liberalization Act".

The measure has been certified as urgent by President Duterte, and has been pushed as one of the economic measures to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before the ratification, Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III said that members of the Senate and House of Representatives agreed to lower the minimum investment capital for foreign retailers to P25 million or about $500,000, with a per-store amount requirement of P10 million.

The House bill originally proposed to set the minimum paid-up capital at P10 million, while the Senate version proposed a P50-million requirement.

Under the current law, the minimum paid-up capital was set at $2.5 million, or around P125 million.

"Hopefully this would attract more investments and create more jobs for our people," Pimentel, chairperson of the Senate trade committee, said in reporting the contents of the bicam report to his colleagues.

Aside from this, Pimentel said the reconciled measure also proposed to revise the law to allow Philippine corporations with not more than 40 percent foreign equity to engage in retail trade "even below the minimum investment threshold amount".

Corporations that are at least 60 percent Filipino-owned will also not be required to comply with the proposed required capital per store of P10 million.

"Because this measure regulates foreign retailers, not the Filipino retailers," Pimentel said.

Meanwhile, the House contingent adopted the Senate's proposal for the preferential hiring of Filipino laborers, and the foreign retailers' use of the local products in their stock inventory, the senator said.

Pimentel also said the penal provisions were "made more reasonable, because we are not after charging criminally."

"We are after their investments and providing jobs to the Philippines," he pointed out.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, one of the co-authors of the bill, saying its passage "comes at opportune time when the country needs all the support to our economy recover because of the pandemic."

"Even if we belong to the opposition, we filed this bill because the country needs it," Drilon said.

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, for his part, stressed the importance of also protecting the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.

The per-store capital requirement, he said, will prevent foreign retailers from breaking up their investment to create smaller shops that will compete with MSMEs.

“We really had to find a balance between attracting foreign investors and also protecting our local sectors. And overall I think we have hit a good compromise. I think this is a landmark bill that will do wonders for our economy, particularly as we recover from the pandemic. I am especially hopeful about all the employment opportunities that this will open up for our people," Zubiri said.

#bicameral conference committee

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