Daily TribuneJust like any strategic investments in the country, the Philippine government assures a red-carpet treatment for critical investments from U.S. companies.
Can anything be more tech and American? Google announced significant investments in the Philippines during the visit of the US trade and investment mission to the Philippines this year. Google Philippines is headquartered in a geek office in Bonifacio Global City.
Photograph courtesy of Mitchell Luo
A billion-dollar American investment: That’s the commitment brought by the US Presidential Trade and Investment Mission that visited the Philippines earlier this year.
US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo led the delegation of high-level executives from 22 US companies and business organizations in March.
Raimondo said the commitments are “high-impact investments in high-impact industries,” such as electric vehicles, digitization and telecoms.
The delegation eyes training over 30 million Filipinos on digital and artificial intelligence.
Raimondo said these education and training opportunities will help Filipinos land high-paying jobs.
Microsoft, for instance, is partnering with Tesda to train more than 100,000 women for AI and cybersecurity skills, and is rolling out an AI learning roadmap to help train “tens of millions of students” for digital and AI upskilling.
Microsoft is also deploying a co-pilot chat-box tool in the country for an open AI service.
“Google is announcing similar investments. We’re also announcing an innovation hub for EV training,” Raimondo said.
The delegation is an offshoot of President Marcos’ visit to the US, where US President Joe Biden initiated to bring the presidential trade and investment mission to the Philippines to reaffirm White House’s commitment to strengthen economic ties with Manila.
Raimondo is confident the mission is just the beginning of the next wave of new and exciting economic engagements between the US and the Philippines.
She said the two countries sustained their “iron-clad” alliance for over 72 years, the US remaining a “steadfast friend” and a “partner in prosperity” for the Philippines.
“President Marcos said… he cannot imagine the Philippine future without a close bond with the United States. I want to say here today, the feeling is mutual,” she said. “But President Biden acknowledges we can do more. We can always do more.”
Just like any strategic investments in the country, the Philippine government assures a red-carpet treatment for critical investments from US companies.
“We assured the Mission in the Philippines’ commitment…with an improved ease of doing business,” special assistant to the president [investment and economic affairs] Secretary Frederick Go said.
Department of Trade and Industry Secretary Alfredo Pascual also urged US businesses to make the Philippines as their central hub in Asia, saying logistics giants FedEx and UPS, which are part of the mission, are planning to expand in the Philippines.
