FRENCH FIRMS STAY DRAWN TO PH’S POTENTIAL: CONSUL
French General Consul Christian Hue, who visited the Mactan Economic Zone 2 last week, says that French companies remain interested in investing on aeronautics, transportation, infrastructure, energy, finance, and education in the Philippines
The country’s macro-economic policies, economic growth, and cheap labor remain attractive to potential French investors to the Philippines, amid international criticisms of the Duterte administration, a diplomat said.
French General Consul Christian Hue said that French companies are keen on exploring investment opportunities in aeronautics, transportation, infrastructure, energy, finance, and education in the Philippines.
Two ways to attract more investors from his country to the Philippines, he said, would be to develop more economic zones and provide tax incentives.
According to data from the French Embassy, trade between France and the Philippines stood at €1.66 billion, or a drop of 30 percent compared to 2014 (€2.365 billion). French exports totaled €818 million. Its imports from the Philippines increased from €492 million in 2014 to €845 million in 2016.
“Our bilateral trade remains highly dependent on sales in the aviation industry, which account for 76 percent of our exports to the Philippines. Outside that sector, our main export items are agrifood products, electronic components, pharmaceuticals and steel structures,” said the embassy.
In his visit to the Delfingens facility, a French automotive supplier, at the Mactan Econom- ic Zone 2, Consul Hue said that Philippine exports to France are also expected to increase by 20 percent with the Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+), where more than 6,000 Philippine products exported to France and any of the member-countries of the European Union (EU) will have zero tariff.
In infrastructure, the consul said, one area of interest is the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). In 2015, then Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and the French Development Agency Asia department head Pascaul Pacaut signed a $57.5-million credit facility agreement for the design, construction, and supervision of the BRT project.
Respect
Consul Hue said that while the crisis in Marawi in Mindanao is a “real danger” that may make foreign investors shy away from the country, the criticisms “from the international media” received by this administration, on extrajudicial killings in particular, would not deter French investors from maximizing the economic potential of the Philippines.
“We are not here to criticize. The country has its own policies and we respect that,” Hue said.
France was the first country to establish a consulate in the Philippines. It opened in 1824, even before the Spanish government formally opened foreign trade in 1832, according to French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the Philippines.
But it was in 1947 when the official diplomatic relations between France and the Philippines took place with the signing of a Treaty of Amity, the first bilateral agreement concluded between both countries.