| PGMA visits Queen at Buckingham Palace; Flying to Kuwait to plead for Marilou's life |
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LONDON (via PLDT) – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
wrapped up Thursday afternoon (local time) her 24-hour working visit to
London highlighted by a series of meetings with leaders of Britain’s
business community and an audience with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. The President and First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo arrived at the Buckingham Palace grounds at high noon and were escorted inside the Palace by royal guards after formal ceremonies accorded a head of state guest of the Queen. The formal reception included the playing of the Philippine and the United Kingdom’s national anthems by the royal band. . The audience with the Queen was strictly private. No member of both the Philippine and British media was allowed to cover the event. Under the Palace protocol, conversations with the Queen as well as photos of calls on the British monarch can only be released for publication by Buckingham Palace. . After her audience with the Queen, the President held back-to-back meetings with London business leaders at the Four Seasons Hotel and later at the Dorchester Hotel before leaving for Heathrow Airport for Seville, Spain. On Sunday morning, the President will leave for Kuwait where she’s expected to personally plead with the Emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al Sabah, to spare the life of Marilou Ranario, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who has been sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of her employer. She is expected to stay in Kuwait for only four hours before heading back to Manila. |
| Come and see investment prospects in RP, PGMA invites London businessmen |
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LONDON (via PLDT) – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
on Thursday (London time) regaled the London business community with the
bright prospects that await investors in mining, energy, tourism, business
process outsourcing (BPO), infrastructure and agriculture-related projects
in the Philippines.
In her address before two separate business forums in less than five hours, one at the Four Seasons Hotel and the other at the Dorchester Hotel, the President cited multiple positive developments in the Philippine business scene that have caught the attention of global investors. “I believe,” she said, that the “Philippines offers one of the best values in Asia for domestic and foreign investments.” She pointed out that the Philippine economy has reached a “new level of maturity and stability, with some of the strongest macroeconomic fundamentals in 20 years.” When she became president six years ago, no one thought that her administration “could get more revenues, cut down on tax cheats, strengthen the peso and move the stock market,” she said. “And no one thought we could bring down our budget deficit, pay our debts and raise employment. But we have,” she added. Over the last six years, a lot has changed in the Philippine economic landscape as the government mounts a sustained effort to move the nation out of poverty and into the circle of First World in 20 years. “For the first time in decades, less of the government revenues are being used to service debts and more toward investments in the country’s infrastructure and social services, including education and health care,” the President said. She pointed out that she is focused on upgrading the competitiveness of the Philippines by improving the quality of the country’s human resources, lowering transaction costs and the cost of doing business in the Philippines. The Philippines is on the path of permanent
economic growth and stability, with inflation at one of its lowest levels in
years, the peso at its strongest and six million jobs have been created in
six years. “And these kinds of investments are happening across the board in a number of industries. We’re working to ensure these will be sustained,” the President stressed. She said her administration is focused on improving the economy and paying external debts ahead of their due date and balancing the national budget ahead of its 2010 original target. The President stressed that her administration will not sacrifice long-term gains for political expediency and that while the Philippines is not prepared to compete head-to-head today in every sector, “it does not mean that we cannot afford to be afraid of globalization.” |
| HSBC senior official lauds RP's data transparency practices |
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LONDON (via PLDT ) – The senior chairman of the
Debt Finance Advisory Group of Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC)
said on Thursday (London time) that the Philippines has consistently topped
the semi-annual survey of investor relations and data transparency practices
among the world’s top 30 emerging market borrowing countries. Robert Gray also said that “many investors here will have benefited from the strong peso, a robust stock market and declining domestic bond yields” in the Philippines. Gray made the statement during the HSBC Investors’ Forum at the Dorchester Hotel Thursday afternoon (Friday morning, Manila time) with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as the principal guest. “I just happen to oversee this process as chairman of the IFF working group on crisis prevention,” he said. “This is a proper occasion to congratulate you and your economic team on your proactive approach to your investor relations program,” Gray told the President. He pointed out that the Washington-based IFF carries out a semi-annual survey of investor relations and data transparency among the 30 emerging borrowing countries. “Since we started this survey, the Philippines has consistently ranked top among the Asian economies, ahead of Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea and on a global scale alongside Brazil, Chile, Mexico and South Africa,” the HSBC senior official said. He pointed out that efforts to improve data transparency and investor relations have improved and become more stable since the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s. “Investors have access to more data than in the past, all delivered in a more timely manner. Equally important, governments are communicating their policy intentions to the market more clearly,” Gray said. He added that prospects for the Philippine economy remain bright given the improvements in government’s policy management, which “have been reaffirmed with a 2008 budget that calls for a further improvement on the fiscal front.” Gray also lauded President Arroyo whose “single-minded focus on the improvement of the economy, raising competitiveness, prepaying debt, improving infrastructure, attracting foreign direct investment and achieving greater prosperity for your people, is praised worldwide.” |
| PGMA witnesses signing of MOA on $120-M pharma plant in Alabang |
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LONDON (via PLDT) – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
witnessed on Thursday (London time) the signing of a memorandum of agreement
(MOA) between Servac Philippines Inc. and Pharmadule AB (PDH) on the
construction of a $120-million pharmaceutical pilot factory in Alabang,
Muntinlupa City, Metro Manila for the manufacture of anti-rabies vaccine. The MOA-signing ceremony followed the President’s address before a group of leading British businessmen at the Four Seasons Hotel Ballroom Thursday afternoon. The MOA states that in “order to arrive at a fixed price for the supply of the pilot plant, PDH will perform a Basic Design study under a separate contract for the design, supply, reassemble and start-up of the process plant and certain services associated therewith.” PDH is a Swedish company specializing in the design and construction of advanced modular production facilities for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. It has delivered more than 50 facilities to clients, including Merck, Eli Lilly, Genetech, AstraZeneca, Baxter and Pharmacia. Servac has acquired a majority stake in the first Philippine biopharmaceutical company which has an outsourcing manufacturing contract with the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine of the Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines for the production of anti-rabies vaccine. The quotation includes the supply and construction of a pharmaceutical plant based on modular fabrication as well as the supply of technical expertise. The Servac-PDH contract also involves the turnkey supply of modular equipment for the installation of a world-class vaccine production facility in the Philippines. When completed, the plant is expected to employ more than 100 persons. |
| PGMA invites Int'l Maritime Organization to hold STCW conference in the Philippines |
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LONDON (via PLDT)---President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
invited on Thursday the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to hold
the Conference on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW)
for Seafarers Convention and its Amendments in the Philippines in the first
quarter of 2010. This conference is very relevant to the Philippines due to its high maritime manpower interest worldwide. The Philippines accounts for close to 275,000 of the 1.2 billion seafarers in the world per International Labor Organization (ILO) report. With this, many call the Philippines as the "Crewing Capital of the World." The President extended the invitation to IMO Secretary-General Efthimos Metropoulos during their meeting at the Presidential Suite at Dorchester Hotel in London Thursday (local time). During the meeting, Metropoulos stressed the importance of Asia in the maritime sector relative to its growing shipbuilding and shipbreaking industry investments. The STCW Convention entered into force in 1978 and its last major amendment was made in 1995. The STCW Convention and STCW Code are currently undergoing review under the IMO Subcommittee on Standards of Training and Watchkeeping (STW) which will meet again on March 3-7 next year. This review will contain major amendments and will consider regulations for maritime security. The STCW was designed to have common standards and regulations for training and watchkeeping for seafarers among IMO Member Governments to enhance maritime safety and security. President Arroyo praised Metropoulos for his efforts in addressing piracy and armed robbery in the Straits of Malacca and off the coast of Somalia and encouraged IMO to consider other high security risk waters. This is very relevant to the Philippines as most international vessels carry Filipino crew on board. The STW Subcommittee is under the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC), the highest technical body of the IMO. The MSC is currently chaired by the Philippines through Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) First Secretary Neil Frank Ferrer, elected last October in Copenhagen, Denmark with a four-year term. Ferrer is the First Asian to ever chair this Committee since its inception in 1959. The meeting was also attended by Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Ambassador to the Court of Saint James's Edgardo Espiritu, Transportation and Communications Undersecretary Maria Elena Bautista and DFA First Secretary Neil Frank Ferrer. The IMO Secretary-General was joined in the meeting by Dr. Rosalie Balkin, Director for Legal and External Affairs; Koji Sekimizu, Director for Maritime Safety; and Mrs. Monica Mbanefo, Director for Technical Cooperation. |
| PGMA urges migrant Filipino workers to invest savings in RP |
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LONDON (via PLDT) --- President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo called on both migrant and resident Filipinos here
Wednesday (London time) to channel their savings into business investments
in the growing Philippine economy. In her address before the Filipino community at the Four Seasons Hotel shortly after her arrival in London from her successful four-day state visit to Spain, the President said investments in the stock exchange, housing, family business and other ventures are bringing economic windfalls to investors and it’s time overseas Filipinos take advantage of the favorable business climate back home. From only 18,000 in 1986, the number of Filipinos living in the United Kingdom jumped to 150,000 in 2006 and is expected to have grown further this year. Although there has not been a massive increase in the number of Filipino workers abroad, their cash remittances to their families in the Philippines have risen significantly owing to the entry of highly-paid skilled workers like engineers, doctors, nurses and other professionals into the global labor market. The President expressed her deep appreciation for the unflinching support of overseas Filipinos for her administration especially during the series of destabilization efforts mounted against her by her detractors. Filipinos abroad have served their country well not only in terms of their remittances but also as goodwill ambassadors of the Philippines in their host countries, she said. “You are the face of our country abroad,” she said. The President said she was greatly gratified that employers of Filipinos abroad, both government and private, have nothing but praise for Filipinos for their industry, dedication, reliability and honesty. Foreign employers “have nothing but praise for our OFWs,” she added. |