Malacañang maintained on Tuesday there was no need to tinker with the 1987 Charter and relax constitutional restrictions limiting foreign ownership of certain businesses in order to lure more investors to the country.
Palace Deputy Spokesman Abigail Valte noted that while some sectors view the existing limit on foreigners owning businesses here as having “negative” effect on potential foreign investors, “we have seen in the past three years [of the Aquino administration] that this is not necessarily the case.”
“That despite the limitations set down by the Constitution on foreign ownership, there are still a lot of investors that come and put their money here in the Philippines,” Valte added, citing the entry of several foreign players in the local real-estate industry.
She asserted, for instance, that “whenever you see [construction] cranes that dominate your skyline, you know that there is progress. So we see it at that. There are many investors who come despite the restrictions on foreign ownership primarily because we have a good climate for putting up your business now in the Philippines.”
Valte added that the positive outlook was recently validated “in the investor confidence surveys. You see it also in confidence surveys relative to local businessmen. You see it in the PSEi [Philippine Stock Exchange index]. You see it in the GDP [gross domestic product]. So it’s not hard to look at the Philippine now and see why we’ve got a good thing going.”
According to her, “There are also [foreign] companies who already have presence here that want to expand their operations” but she did not identify these firms.
Source: Butch Fernandez, Business Mirror. 7 May 2013.
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