PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. has earned the trust of European investors, the Trade department said on Tuesday as it linked the increase in foreign investments to the Philippine leader’s foreign trips.

The Board of Investments (BoI) recorded P427 billion in foreign investment approvals from January to September 2023, a 4,150-percentage-point increase from the same period last year, Trade Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo said at a Palace briefing.

Many of them came from Germany (80%) and were for renewable energy projects, he added at the briefing, two days before Mr. Marcos’ scheduled trip to Saudi Arabia for the summit between Southeast Asian and Gulf leaders.

“If we look at it, the presidential visits have a direct impact on the foreign investments portion of the approvals of the Board of Investments,” Mr. Rodolfo said. “This is a big deal… there is direct linkage to presidential visits.”

He also cited the removal of foreign equity restrictions on renewable energy that took effect in December last year as a contributing factor for the German investments.

“He didn’t go to Germany, but he went to Brussels, where he had roundtable discussions and fora. We had separate roundtable discussions on renewable energy projects,” he said. The Philippine leader visited Brussels, Belgium, in December 2022 for the Asean-European Union (EU) Commemorative Summit.

“In the past, we were not a darling of EU countries because of some reasons. But now, when the President said we are open for business, and they see policy reforms in the Philippines, they come in,” Mr. Rodolfo said.

Japan, which Mr. Marcos visited in February, and South Korea also accounted for many of the investment approvals, the trade official said.

However, the central bank had reported that the Philippines’ net foreign direct investments (FDI) declined by 14.7% year on year in end-July.

Mr. Marcos will leave the country on Oct. 19 for the first-ever summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Oct. 20, over a decade after the first ministerial meetings between the two organizations in Bahrain in 2009.

Mr. Marcos’ visit to Saudi Arabia will be his ninth foreign trip this year, and the 15th since he assumed office in June 2022.

He has visited China, Switzerland, Japan, the US, the UK, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore this year.

He is set to fly to the US again in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting, and to the United Arab Emirates in December for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Mr. Marcos spent over P392.3 million last year on his foreign trips. His office is seeking P1.408 billion to fund foreign travel next year. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

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