President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo returns Thursday afternoon from her six-day official and working visits to the Vatican City, Portugal and China.

The Presidential entourage is expected to fly in at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 in Pasay City at 3:25 p.m. on board a chartered Philippine Airlines (PAL) Flight PR-001.

Expected to welcome her back are Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Jerrill Santos who will usher her up the concourse, and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon Jr. who will greet her at the Foyer.

Esperon will accompany the President through the Foyer honors and to the welcome party led by Vice President Noli de Castro, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, AFP major services commanders and Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Oscar Calderon.

The Chief Executive will immediately proceed to the Batasan Hills complex in Quezon City to attend the 100th anniversary celebration of the House of Representatives.

The President’s visits to Italy, Portugal and China were aimed at further strengthening the religious, cultural, diplomatic and economic relations of the Philippines with these countries.

In Rome, the President paid visit to the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican City and attended the canonization rites of Blessed Marie Eugene de Jesus Milleret, Karel Van Sint Andres Houben Szymon z Lipnicy and Georgio Preca.

In Lisbon, Portugal, she paid homage to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.

Thus President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo set the tone of her two-day visit to China in her informal talk with Mayor Ge Honglin of Chengdu – a "municipality" one-third the size of the Philippines -- before addressing the Chengdu Business Forum at the Jinjiang Hotel before noon Wednesday.

Warm, indeed, was the reception given the visiting Philippine leader who was met by Chengdu the lady Vice-Mayor Zhao Xiao Wei at the Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport and a little boy with a bouquet of beautiful blooms.

At lunchtime, Sichuan, Chengdu’s mother province, feted the President with a 20-course banquet spread on a giant round table at the center of the hotel’s ground floor. Onstage, a 10-woman mini orchestra serenaded the President with Chinese ditties and the Philippines’ own Leron, Leron, Sinta. Young Chengdu artists spiced up the entertainment fare with a display of various native dances.

Before the luncheon, which was hosted by the Sichuan officialdom led by Governor Jiang Jufeng, the President addressed the Chengdu Business Forum at the Brocade City Room of the Jinjiang Hotel right beside the VIP Room where Chengdu officials gathered in full force to listen to her conversation with Chengdu Mayor Honglin.

At their meeting, Mayor Honglin proposed to the President that the Philippine government establish a consulate in Chengdu, to which she readily acceded.

At the Business Forum, she said that her Chengdu trip, the first by a Philippine President to the Chinese city, was a rare opportunity for her to meet and exchange views with top officials of the metropolis on various issues. "Open dialogue and trust between peoples and nations has never been more important than in today’s world," she said.

"We welcome this opportunity to communicate with the people of Sichuan province in order to help forge stronger ties," the President said, adding that Philippines-China relations are "at an all-time high, at a golden age."

She pointed out that Philippine relations with China are now "more confident, mature, and comprehensive. They are punctuated with substantial and important projects aimed at deepening exchanges in a number of areas, including economics, trade and investment, and even defense."

China is one of the Philippines top three trade partners.

The President cited four projects which she described as the "major landmarks" of Philippine-China relations. These are: 1) the Philippines-China Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Partnership Framework, 2) the Northrail from Manila "to my home province of Pampanga," 3) the National Broadband Network projects in the Philippines "which is a very important backbone of our telecommunications infrastructure," and (4) the continued regular exchanges of high-level visits between our two countries.

"We are delighted with China financing our Northrail and National Broadband Network projects," the President said, pointing out that "transport and communication infrastructure development is crucial to our economic development plan for our nation."

Sichuan’s New Hope group, which set up a $11-million feed factory along the MacArthur Highway in Pampanga three years ago, is set to expand its operations in the Philippines this year with an additional $7-million investment in new plants in San Simon, Pampanga, one in Isabela, and one each in the Visayas and Mindanao.

"We look forward to the day when Sichuan substantially raises the level of investments in the Philippines," the President said, as she invited both landlocked city and province to invest more in "our archipelago with beautiful beaches."

"Chengdu is an important market for fresh fruits, such as the famous Philippine mangoes, bananas, pineapples, and young coconut. Also for processed food such as dried fruits, nuts, fruit juices and puree, coconut products, canned fruit and frozen seafood like abalone," she said.

On bilateral economic and trade relations, the President said, "we hope that both the Philippines and Sichuan should push to further deepen existing cooperation between the two economies."

"We envision a day when Sichuanese and Filipinos are trading more with each other, investing more in each other, and visiting each other more," she said.

The President told the China (Chongqing)-Philippines Trade and Investment Forum at the Grand Ballroom of the Chongqing International Conference and Exhibition Center here: "We support the proposal for the establishment of direct flights between the Philippines and Chongqing."

Direct flights between Manila and Chongqing, China’s wartime capital, are expected to encourage people from this landlocked province along the mighty Yangtze River to visit the Philippines. Chongqing is 45 minutes away by air from Chengdu where the Philippines is to set up a consulate for central and western China.

A direct flight from Manila to Chongqing and vice-versa would take about three hours. "Chongqing and the Three Gorges are drawing visitors from around the world, including Filipinos. On the other hand, we hope tourists from Chongqing will also visit the Philippines," the President said.

"We are a nation composed of many islands with beautiful white beaches, something which Chongqing does not have because it is landlocked," she pointed out.

She added that as the only state-level municipality in central and western China, Chongqing is "an ideal city to develop the Philippines’ engagement with China’s ‘western development strategy.’"

"Its choice geographic location at the end node of the Yangtze inland waterway will quickly make it China’s economic center. It is the home of China’s primary inland waterway port," the President explained.

Once the Three Gorges Dam fills up in 2009, the Yangtze inland waterway will be able to accommodate ocean-going vessels as well. "I hope the Philippines can be here before that happens," she added.

Like in Chengdu, the President asked the Chongqians to reciprocate Philippine investments in their province. The Philippine-based Allied Bank has a branch in Chengdu—the Xinlian Shangye Bank at the Hilton Hotel here. Philippine shopping giant SM also plans to set up a branch here in addition to its two branches, one in Fujian and the other in Chengdu.

She said that in "return, we invite Chongqing investments in the Philippines," citing Zongche, a Chongqing company, as the "number one Chinese brand in the Philippine motorcycle market."

"We are glad to learn that they are now investing in nickel mining and speedboat manufacturing in the Philippines," she said.

The Chief Executive said that with "more opportunities for more engagement between our economies, together we could realize a truly closer economic partnership."

In response to the President’s call for closer trade and economic relations between the Philippines and Chongqing, City Mayor Wang Hongju agreed to lead a business, cultural, science and technology delegation to the Philippines next month.

The President said she has "given instructions to our ambassador to China that she should prepare a good program for the (Chongqian) delegation."    

Held at the city’s flashy exhibition center, the business forum was organized by the Chongqing Sub-Council of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, the China Chamber of International Commerce, and the Chongqing Chamber of Commerce.

In her sales pitch to the business communities of Chengdu in Sichuan, China’s largest province, and in this fastest growing city in the world, the President invariably cited the Philippines’ skilled human resources, strategic location, and infrastructure investments in her effort to attract foreign investments from this part of the world.  

"The Philippines is the perfect regional partner to aid as a logistics partner. Third country logistics services are important for China because it needs to source and import many of its raw materials and immediate inputs," the President said, adding that the country could help enhance the competitiveness of Chinese inland industries by doing procurement and pre-processing of low value-to-weight product components in the Philippines.

The Philippines provides logistic services to Chengdu in terms of forwarding networks and procedures, supply chain services and even local warehousing.

"The Philippines is especially positioned to be supplier of logistics services to China because of its strategic position in ASEAN, high-value high-skilled labor well versed in international logistics, existing economic zones, ready supply of raw materials and intermediate products, especially semi-conductors, agricultural and mineral resources," she told businessmen in Chengdu Wednesday.

"In fact, it (the Philippines) is already a major semi-conductor supplier to China," she added.

The Philippines, according to President Arroyo, offers one of the best values for Chinese investors.

"We offer a strategic location in a fast-growing region. Our workforce is well educated, productive and English speaking. We are cutting red tape to simplify the requirements for investing in the Philippines," she explained.

In Chongqing, the President said the country is raising its competitiveness by improving the quality of the country’s human resources, lowering transaction flows and costs of doing business, developing efficient access to financing, and a seamless infrastructure network.

"Our government has taken the difficult decisions to raise the additional revenues needed to invest in infrastructure and services to create an economic environment that is conducive to investment," she related.

In both Chengdu and Chongqing, the President pointed to the expanded value-added tax (EVAT) as the "single biggest act mainly responsible for the good performance of the Philippine economy."