By Leslie D. Venzon / Philippines News Agency
More Danish companies will increase trade and investment in the Philippines over the next few years, encouraged by the opportunities offered by the country, which they refer to as “The Bright Shining Star of Asia”, and positive initiatives taken by the Duterte administration, an envoy has said.
In an interview Ambassador Jan Top Christensen shrugged off worries on the declaration of martial law to solve serious security problems in Mindanao, which was based on the Constitution.
He expressed hope that the government would soon resolve the problems in Marawi City and move forward with peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front.
“The Philippines continues to attract attention from Danish companies. Big, small and medium-sized Danish enterprises are interested in doing business in the Philippines,” he said.
Christensen added Danish firms have presence in all sectors in the Philippines, including food, pharmaceutical, agriculture and fashion industries.
In 2016 four Danish delegations came to the Philippines to explore opportunities in various sectors, such as fisheries and technologies, health and pharmaceutical and energy efficiency, he added.
“We also see an interest from Danish companies setting up BPOs [business-process outsourcing offices]. Because of the English-speaking population here, it is a very attractive proposition for Danish companies to set up [BPOs],” the ambassador said.
He also cited a number of Danish maritime companies employing about 6,000 Filipinos because of the country’s well-educated people.
“It is [thus] important for the Philippines to keep up the quality and the pipeline of well-educated seafarers to make sure that no other nations step in and replace the Philippines,” he said.
Christensen referred to the Philippines as The Bright Shining Star of Asia, with abundant human capital and natural resources, noting that “if you use that in a rational way and develop that, you definitely have a bright shining future”.
As the two countries enhance trade relations, Christensen further said Danish export to the Philippines rose 10 percent from 2015 to 2016.
“With the preferential trade status, the so-called GSP+ [Generalized Scheme of Preferences], granted from the EU [European Union], the Philippine manufacturers have a golden opportunity to sell more products to the European market, including to Denmark,” he said.
The ambassador stressed that the preferential trade treatment under the GSP+ is beneficial to Philippine manufacturers “because they can get their products to the European markets without any tariff and that makes them very competitive”.
“If you look at exports from the Philippines to the European market, including Denmark, (it) has gone up substantially and we do expect that it will go up further exactly because of GSP arrangement,” he said.
Meanwhile, Christensen noted some positive initiatives taken by the Duterte administration, which are “in the right direction”.
“An executive order on freedom of information was issued already almost a year ago. It is, indeed, very much needed to fight the still too high level of corruption. Less corruption will lead to more foreign investment and more jobs for Filipinos,” he said.
Christensen expressed hope that Congress would soon follow up on this and pass a bill that would widen the scope.
He also cited the signing of an executive order on reproductive health, the government’s ambitious target to substantially reduce poverty, and increased investment in agriculture.
“[The] implementation of the government’s huge infrastructure program, ‘Build, Build, Build’, will help get rid of many bottlenecks for economic development and then open up for creating more jobs. Danish companies are already involved in interesting infrastructure projects,” he added.