Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda seeks to lead a “relentless policy effort to secure whale-sized trading and investment opportunities for the Philippines” worth as much as $20 billion, amid the escalating US-China trade tensions that push global manufacturing investors to diversify their value chains.
Salceda, who is also the House Ways and Means Committee chair and a well-regarded equity analyst in the Asian markets, said “a chaotic global order, while fraught with challenges, is also full of opportunities for countries with strong fundamentals” like the Philippines.
“I think we can easily target annual post-COVID FDIs of $20 billion. Our resistance is at $10 billion right now. I will bring the trade and finance chiefs together to get us to target $20 billion, annually. I disdain small national dreams for a country with gigantic potential. Let’s go big or go home with national objectives,” he said.
“We have the youngest labor force in ASEAN. We are largely English-speaking. We have an increasingly more productive workforce. Our citizens are tech-savvy. Our fiscal ship is tight, and our economic potential is immense. With aggressive trade and investment policy, we can take significant chunks of global trade and investments for our country,” Salceda said.
In a recent budget interview with Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, Salceda said he wants more active investment policies using unconventional tools to attract trade and investments.
The Albay lawmaker recently filed the proposed Financial Technology Industry Development Act to pursue investors seeking to relocate from Hong Kong, in the wake of serious concerns about tightening government regulations in the Special Administrative Region.
His proposal includes provisions for special visas for fintech executives and investors, to be recommended by the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. He said the swift approval and enactment of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises would also help attract overdue investments that were postponed due to uncertainties in the fiscal regime.
“Passing CREATE will be the lowest-hanging fruit. We have easily foregone USD12 billion in investments in the past two years that we have delayed its passage. If the version passed by the Senate is fiscally sustainable, I will go for its adoption by the House. No “forever” in tax incentives, no bicam needed,” he said.
Salceda said he would ask the Trade and Finance secretaries for a united front on the country’s international tax strategy.
“Double tax agreements, not even preferential tariffs yet, helped Vietnam convince Korean companies to invest big in their country. I want us to think out of the free-trade agreement box and come up with innovative trade strategies such as DTAs. We need to be very cunning, however, with our strategy,” the tax chair said.
The Department of Trade focuses on “deepening trade relations with strategic partners such as EU, US and Korea through bilateral FTAs; enhancing trade relations with major markets such as Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand via Regional Comprehensive and Economic Partnership agreements; maximizing the Generalized System of Preferences status it has from countries such as the US and EU to access their market at preferential duties, using the FTAs and GSP leverage to encourage manufacturers to establish operations in the country and access the markets with established FTA ties.”