Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III expects the country’s bilateral relations with Japan to “grow more comprehensively” over the years, especially as both countries complement each other and can even become “demographic partners.”
Dominguez told the Japanese business community Japan’s forward-looking enterprises and more experienced and highly skilled labor force with a median age of up to 46 years old and the Philippines’ young, technology savvy workers whose average age is 24 years old complemented each other.
Confirming the potentials of the demographic complementarity, he said, were the 78 Osaka-based companies operating in the Philippines as of 2017. These are run by Japanese expatriates, who employ thousands of talented, English-proficient Filipino employees.
“Over the years, we have enjoyed excellent trade relations and business collaboration with the hardy enterprises of this prefecture. I am sure that in the coming period, we will discover even more complementarities,” Dominguez said at the Philippine Economic Briefing held at the Imperial Hotel Osaka in Osaka, Japan.