The British Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines is organizing a trade mission to Iloilo province in March next year, continuing a commitment to expose businesses in the United Kingdom to the different areas of the Philippines outside Metro Manila.
In a press briefing in Makati City, BCCP chairman Chris Nelson said the trip to Iloilo comes on the heels of a successful year for the business group, which included a similar trade and investment mission to Davao City last March.
Two British companies out of 65 have already set up shop in Davao—the hometown of President Rodrigo Duterte—following that trade mission, as Nelson said the chamber’s members looked to invest in the Philippines for the long term.
Iloilo City, the economic center of Panay Island and the Western Visayas region, could expect as many visitors as Davao had in the first quarter of 2018, the BCCP chief added.
“It has been a very good year for the Chamber, and we have continued, in partnership with the British Embassy Manila and the [UK] Department for International Trade, to promote the Philippines as an opportunity for our companies,” he said.
The BCCP has assisted over 1,600 British companies since the start of the UK’s Overseas Partner Delivery Project in April 2014. These services include contact referrals, market introductions, market researches and trade missions, Nelson noted.
Clients of the chamber were mainly from the information and communication technology, food and beverage, construction, pharmaceutical and medical device, and business consultancy industries.
Most of them are small and medium enterprises that are eager to see if their products or services are a match for the Philippine market, and often ask the BCCP on how easy it is to do business in the country despite the negative press it has been getting, Nelson said.
He noted that UK-Philippine trade relations remain consistent, as Britain is the largest European investor in the country worth more than 1 billion British pounds (US$1.2 billion or P60.47 billion) in 2015. Total trade, on the other hand, amounted to over one billion euros (P59.58 billion) in 2016.
Nelson, who has been in the Philippines for 15 years including stints in the banking and tobacco industries, noted that he went back to Davao last July 21 to show the BCCP’s support to the Davao Investment Conference or Davao ICON.
The British Chamber has actively demonstrated its support to the government’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda in the past year, he noted, and the DuterteNomics Forum last August 10 also showed BCCP’s commitment to foster a more liberalized and business-friendly environment in the country.
Nelson also said UK Trade Envoy Richard Graham visited the country last September, particularly Manila, Bataan, and Pampanga, to discuss developments in infrastructure – a sequel to his visit last March that explored opportunities in the same sector.
In the same month, Louis Taylor, CEO of UK Export Finance – the British government’s export credit agency – visited the Philippines to meet with officials from the Asian Development Bank, Department Finance, and Department of Public Works and Highways.
“There is a lot of interest from our members for these infrastructure contracts and subcontracts, and that’s why one of BCCP’s campaigns is to reduce red tape and ease some of the restrictions on foreign investments here,” he said. Jimbo Gulle