President Rodrigo Duterte is scheduled to meet with Thai businessmen to present the Philippines as a “good investment destination” during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Bangkok.
This as ASEAN leaders are eager to sign a sweeping China-led trade pact by the end of this year, Thailand’s prime minister said Friday, with further talks expected at a Bangkok summit on the world’s biggest commercial deal that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
According to Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, Duterte will be talking to members and leaders of the federation of Thai industries, business chambers, as well as private companies who are in banking, food manufacturing, agriculture, agribusiness, and real estate.
“It will be an open discussion that will basically allow the President to present the Philippines as a very good investment destination,” he said in a press conference.
Lopez said some of these investment companies are already operating in the Philippines.
“So we are basically asking them to be more active and increase their exposure and their investments,” he said.
Lopez said Duterte will guarantee the protection of Thai investments.
The President is also expected to present credit rating, reforms being undertaken with respect to investments, banks, financial reforms, and liberalization of foreign investment, he said.
Beijing is seeking to shape the rules of free trade across the Asia-Pacific, as America retreats from multilateral deals under US President Donald Trump.
The China-crafted Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership includes all 10 economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations who are meeting this weekend in the Thai capital.
But it also sweeps in China’s main regional rival India, as well Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, covering half the world’s population and around 40 percent of its trade.
Squabbles with India over access to its giant consumer market–as well as Australia and New Zealand over the lack of “high quality” labor and environmental standards–have undercut talks in recent months.
Analysts say these competing priorities mean signing the deal any time soon may be unlikely.
But ASEAN, hosted this year by Thailand, is determined to hustle the pact through as tit-for-tat tariffs between the US and China tariff darken the outlook for global free trade.
“Thailand is trying to expedite the conclusion of the RCEP negotiations this year,” Prayut Chan-O-Cha, Thailand’s former junta leader who is now premier, told a business forum in Bangkok Friday.
“This is the agreed intention of all leaders.”
Seven of the 18 chapters within the deal have been “concluded,” said Lopez.
“We have reached a point to really demand from different negotiating parties to be more realistic, pragmatic,” he said, adding the US-China spat should prompt ASEAN to “fast-track” the RCEP deal.
Shortly after taking office, Trump pulled out off an American-led Asia-Pacific trade pact — called the TPP, preferring to leverage the power of the world’s largest economy bilaterally with Southeast Asian nations.
That opened the door for Beijing to champion free trade across the Asia-Pacific.
But the US is at pains to insist it has not abandoned the region and remains “very committed” to Southeast Asia, Peter Haymond, US Charge D’Affaire to Thailand said at the forum.
“We see this as a hugely dynamic region,” he said, adding the Trump administration “has put more priority on updating and improving” existing trade agreements.
“But [it] is very committed to strengthening its partnerships throughout ASEAN and throughout the region.”
On Thursday, Duterte designated Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra as officer-in-charge of the executive department while he is on official travel to Thailand to attend the ASEAN Summit in Bangkok.
As officer-in-charge, Guevarra was assigned “to take care of the day-to-day operations and oversee the general administration of the Executive Department.” With PNA
