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By Katrina Mennen A. Valdez, Reporter
Despite concerns about the peace and order
situation, the “tendency” of Filipino labor groups to sue their
employers and the inaction of the government on the matter of
solving the double-taxation problem for Taiwanese investors, now in
the country are by and large happy and bullish about future
prospects.
The representative to the Philippines of the
Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO), Ambassador Hsin Hsing
Wu, told this to The Manila Times editors and reporters on Monday.
In a roundtable with The Times editors and
reporters, Ambassador Wu said that the Philippines is impressive for
being a growing market—because it has a large population.
There is a good fit between Taiwan, the more
developed industrial and financial partner, and its closest
neighbor, the Philippines, with a lot of natural resources and
competent labor, as Taiwan’s hinterland.
He said that after the 1997 financial crisis,
during which a lot of Taiwanese investors in the Philippines
suffered, interest in the Philippine cooled. But now many new
investors in Taiwan are again reassessing the Philippines and seeing
a lot of positive things.
He can see more investors coming in the coming
months and years.
He acknowledges the success—despite some
occasional problems—of the Taiwan locators in Subic.
He said Phases 1 and 2 of the Taiwan-developed
industrial parks in Subic will now be progressing to Phase 3.
He said Taiwanese businessmen now involved in
the successful ventures are in the main happy with the concept of
the “Economic Corridor” made up of Subic, Clark and the Export
Processing zones of southern Taiwan.
More Taiwanese investors would come in he said
if the double-taxation issue were settled.
He said that another incentive would be the
reduction—perhaps through an executive or administrative
order—of the requirement for goods produced in the corridor to
have 40-percent local content. Taiwanese investors would be
attracted to a 25 percent requirement.
In addition, Wu said, a number of Taiwanese
locators are still not satisfied with the incentives they are
getting from the Philippine government. However, he said that the
current locators are set to stay despite their complaints.
For a product to be considered to originating
from Asean and eligible for lower duties under the AFTA-Common
Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme, at least 40 percent of
its components should originate from the region.
Last month, SBMA Administrator Armand C. Arreza
said in a press briefing that the petition of the Taiwanese locators
to relax the local content quota from 40 to 25 percent is already
under consideration—but only for a “certain period of time.”
This Arreza said still need to be discussed with the Philippines’
Asean partners.
The total balance of trade between the
Philippines and Taiwan stood at $7.26 billion in 2006. Taiwan is the
5th largest trading partner of the Philippines. Meanwhile, the US
dollar remittance from Taiwan, mainly from the 100,000 documented
OFWs and perhaps 170,000 undocumented Filipino workers, reached $1
billion a year in 2006.
At the Subic Bay Industrial Park alone, there
are about 46 Taiwanese locators, the biggest of which is Wistron
Infocomm (Acer).
Wu said that besides business and industry,
tourism is a major attraction for Taiwanese. He said that 140,000
Taiwanese visit the Philippines annually. This will surely increase
with the opening of more flights between the Philippines and Taiwan.
He added that the major tourist destinations for
Taiwanese are Bohol, Cebu, Laoag and Palawan.
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