The unparalleled record of inbound business missions to the Philippines this year manifests the strong confidence of foreign investors on the country’s business environment.

“Consistent with positive reviews of international rating agencies on the Philippines, this influx
of business missions is a strong affirmation of the Aquino administration’s economic reforms that have resonated prominently to foreign investors worldwide,” said Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary Cristino Panlilio.

The Board of Investments (BOI) recorded a total of 487 inbound business corporation visits from January to October last year. These missions are composed of 147 individual company visits and 34 multi-company delegation missions, where each mission was composed of at least five corporation executives.

Year-on-year, inbound business missions for 2012 year increased by 56.6 percent from the 311 inbound missions of 2011. There was also an increase in multi-company delegations by 112.5 percent from a total of 18 in 2011 to 34 in 2012.

Panlilio said that the increase in inbound business missions can be attributed to the revival of interest of countries such as United Kingdom, France and Canada, and the growing interest coming from non-traditional markets like Russia, Europe (particularly Turkey), Middle East (namely Oman, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi), and Africa (particularly Nigeria).

 “Traditional markets such as Japan, US, Taiwan, and Korea remained a major source of foreign investor visits,” Panlilio added.

The inbound mission’s sectors of interest were information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO), power including green energy, infrastructure or public-private partnership projects, tourism, agribusiness and aquaculture, and manufacturing of aerospace parts, electronics, garments and textiles, steel, machineries, automotive, shipbuilding, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Presidential visits
The BOI also recorded a total of 13 outbound missions and four Presidential state visits this year. President Benigno Aquino 3rd led three of these state visits, which include the UK and US, that brought back at least $2.5 billion in investments in June; New Zealand and Australia that pitched investment opportunities in the Philippines in October; and Cambodia to attend the Asean Business Advisory Council meeting during the Asean Summit last November.  Asean is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

For the fourth and recent state visit to India to keynote the Asean-India Business Fair and Forum, and meet with executives of Indian companies and leaders of a trade organization in the Indian software industry during the Asean-India Commemorative Summit, Vice President Jejomar Binay represented Aquino.

Last year, there were 18 outbound mission conducted. Out of this number, 13 were BOI-led missions and five were Presidential state visits.

Last year’s 13 outbound missions were in Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Australia and Cambodia. The areas of interests are maintenance, repair and overhaul services, electricity generation and transmission, hydropower power, tourism, energy, e-vehicle, agribusiness, shipbuilding, business process outsourcing, duty free shops and investments in economic zones and in Mindanao.

“In 2013, we expect this trend to continue with numerous investor queries and requests for assistance in the conduct of our due diligence activities. We are also anticipating a considerable increase in realized investment projects with value propositions from the industry roadmaps developed this year,” Panlilio said.