JAPANESE firms in the services sector would prefer to invest first in China, Thailand and Vietnam before going to the Philippines due to the relatively smaller number of Japanese-speaking people here.

Trade Undersecretary and Board of Investments managing head Elmer C. Hernandez said the number of Niponggo-speaking individuals in a particular country is important for Japanese investors because they have difficulty in speaking English.

Aside from this, the target clients of these service firms are also Japanese, so it is important for them to locate in a country where there would be a vast pool of Niponggo-speaking human resources.

“Human resource is the most important in services,” Hernandez said.

At present, Hernandez said, the Philippines lags behind China, Thailand and Vietnam in terms of the number of people who can speak Japanese well.

In China, Hernandez said, there are about 250,000 Niponggo-speaking people, while in the Philippines, the number is just less than 20,000.

Aside from this, China’s system of writing is similar to the Japanese’s Kanji.

In spite of this, Hernandez said, the Chinese government is still aggressively teaching the Japanese language to its nationals.

“So now they [Japanese investors] are going more to China,” Hernandez said, noting that he learned of these things when he attended a roundtable seminar on foreign direct investments in Tokyo recently.

He said the Philippine government should also be making efforts to get more Filipinos to learn the Japanese language if the country hopes to attract more Japanese firms in the services sector to invest here.

“We must be able to communicate with them. Language is an issue. That is where we are losing,” Hernandez said.

STATE-owned Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) has set up a P1-billion livelihood facility to benefit overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in partnership with Smart Communications Inc.

THE long delays in the Australian decision to completely lift the ban on Philippine tropical fruits have slowly strained trade relations between the two countries and affected private-sector decision to explore New Zealand market that offers better terms to similar products also found in Canberra, said a senior trade diplomat.

AGRARIAN Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman on Tuesday formally asked President Arroyo’s support to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by certifying as urgent a bill in Congress endorsing the program’s extension.

CACAO producers are eyeing to hike cocoa production to as much as 15,000 metric tons (MT) within five years or almost triple the average 5,600 MT dry cocoa beans produced by the Philippines annually.

JAPANESE firms in the services sector would prefer to invest first in China, Thailand and Vietnam before going to the Philippines due to the relatively smaller number of Japanese-speaking people here.