Investment inflow seen this year

BOI to mark golden year

vestment prospects from new and non-traditional sources such as China and Russia, who have been courted by President Rodrigo Duterte as the Philippines new circle of friends.

According to Rodolfo, the Joint Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation between the Philippines and Russia will have their inaugural meeting in Manila in preparation for Duterte’s visit to Moscow in March this year.

Russian Deputy Minister for economic development Alexander Tsybulskiy is visiting the country on January 26 in time for the inaugural JCTEC meeting. The JCTEC is a bilateral platform for discussion to enhance trade and economic cooperation. The joint commission, which took a decade to accomplish and was revived during the Manila APEC in 2015, was ratified only in December last year by Duterte.

Rodolfo expects the JCTEC to cover cooperation in the areas of energy, infrastructure, science and technology industry development, aerospace, tourism, electronics, IT-BPM, agri-fishery, metallurgy, iron and steel and agribusiness.

He said Russia might even push for oil exploration projects and wheat ventures during the visit of President Duterte.

“Everything is on the table,” said Rodolfo adding that Russia is interested to push relations on this side in Asia since they have good relations with China and Vietnam already.

In addition, the Philippines and China are also scheduled to hold their Joint Economic Commission meeting in March this year. The last meeting was held in China in 2011 yet.

According to Rodolfo, the reconvening of the Philippines-China JEC was a result of President Duterte’s visit to Beijing last year, which was followed by high level discussion. (BCM)