By Justine Irish D. Tabile, Reporter

THE PHILIPPINES and the UK are expected to sign an export finance agreement within three months, the British ambassador said, involving an allocation for the Philippines of about 5 billion pounds (P375 billion).

Ambassador Laure Beaufils said late Wednesday that UK Export Finance will support British firms’ participation in infrastructure projects like bridges, railroads, offshore wind farms, and ports.

“We hope that (the agreement) will happen over the course of the next three months. We are very hopeful of that,” Ms. Beaufils told reporters.

“It is really about supporting British exports to the Philippines… (the financing) can take the form of guarantees or support a loan from a bank; it can take a lot of different forms to enable the Philippines to basically buy British products,” she said.

“Our export finance offer (requires that) only 20% of the project has British content. You can have a big project with only 20% British content” that can be financed, she added.

She called Philippine interest in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) a “great development.”

“More important and interesting for us is the possibility of the Philippines joining CPTPP, which could be a great development because we see it as the gold standard of trade agreements. And I know the Philippines has been looking at that as a possibility,” she said. 

“For us that would be great because then the Philippines would accede to that existing big family of trading partners that are using the gold standard,” she added.

She said that joining the CPTPP makes more sense for the Philippines than negotiating bilateral free trade agreements with the members of the partnership.

Regarding US tariffs, she said the Philippines will have some difficulty attracting companies seeking to relocate from high-tariff countries.

“The challenge for the Philippines is that the cost of energy is so high and it doesn’t really have a manufacturing base that’s ready right now. And that’s going to be the challenge in terms of whether the Philippines can benefit from higher tariffs on other ASEAN countries,” she said.

“It won’t happen overnight, I suspect,” she added.

However, she said there is a lot of interest from British tech and cyber companies as well as companies providing financial services.

According to the ambassador, the UK’s new trade envoy, George Freeman, will be visiting the Philippines in May.

“I think that’s going to be a really exciting moment in our trade as well because he’s going to try to really dig down on some of these sectors. And in particular, tech, because he’s an expert in science and tech, to see what more we can do to turbocharge our relationship,” she added.

THE franchising industry is expected to post more modest growth of about 8% this year, the Philippine Franchise Association (PFA) said.

“I think (growth will be) a bit more muted… at about 8-10%,” PFA Chairman Sam Christopher Lim said on the sidelines of the Franchise Asia Philippines 2025 Conference and Expo.

The association had projected 10-12% growth was for 2024.

“We do know there are a lot of headwinds around the world, and we do not know where inflation or  interest rates are going,” he added.

He said US tariffs will have an effect on brands most exposed to the US market.

“But even that will be a bit muted because I think in the franchise sector, they’ve been diversifying their supply base, and a lot are actually localized,” he added.

In terms of value, PFA Director Joey Alvero said the industry’s value is “much bigger now” compared to the P538 billion estimated in 2022.

“I think if in the past years it has been growing by about 8-10%, (at a compounded rate) it is going to be about P800 billion,” he said.

Mr. Lim said that food remains the biggest segment for the franchising industry.

“But services is actually one of the faster-growing sectors. As the market matures, service franchising actually becomes an equally important sector. But food will still drive most of it,” Mr. Lim said.

He said that the growth will also be driven by the demand from more people getting into franchising.

“We see a lot of people really wanting to be their own boss. Especially people in the provinces — they want to be based back there and create their own opportunities there,” he added.

He also cited the Department of Trade and Industry’s support for the franchising industry through financing.

However, Mr. Lim said the industry needs policy support in the area of ease of doing business.

“If there’s something that will help the industry, it’s ease of doing business, cutting red tape, and really trying to standardize the rules across the local government units because sometimes they differ,” he added. — Justine Irish D. Tabile