Marcos: Foreign Trips Aim to Boost Economic Benefits

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday that his foreign trips are part of his administration's concerted efforts to improve the economic benefits for the country.

In his third State of the Nation Address (SONA), Marcos highlighted the positive impacts of his foreign trips, noting that they created substantial job opportunities and economic growth.

The opportunities created from the foreign trips include infrastructure development, business-friendly policies, and investment promotions.

"Our aggressive infrastructure development, business-friendly policies, investment and export promotions, foreign visits, and economic missions are all aimed at generating not just jobs, but quality and competitive jobs," Marcos said.

"In our estimation, besides the significant income for the country, these will create more than two hundred and two thousand jobs," he added, pointing out that these investments are projected to generate over 202,000 jobs.

The Presidential Communications Office said in 2023 that P4 trillion in investments were made during Marcos' 11 overseas tours, though it did not specify how much of the pledges were fulfilled.

A June report from the Department of Trade and Industry showed that actualized investments of $19 billion (P1.1 trillion) have resulted from Marcos' travels thus far.

Marcos traveled to eight countries in 2024: Vietnam, Germany, the Czech Republic, the United States, Singapore, and Brunei twice each. He also made one trip to Australia.

Meanwhile, Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual said 20 of the projects committed during Marcos' foreign trips are currently underway. These projects have invested a total of $1.26 billion.

According to Pascual, the DTI has more than 200 investment leads with a combined potential value of over $70 billion.

These leads generate a pipeline of project registrations for the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and the Board of Investments (BOI), two DTI-affiliated entities.

“The rationalized incentives scheme under the CREATE Act (Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act) has also made possible the generation of investments amounting to more than P1 trillion, and more than 100,000 new jobs. This promising state of affairs is now beckoning us to create more through the passage of the CREATE MORE (CREATE to Maximize Opportunities for Reinvigorating the Economy) Act,” Marcos added.

The President said that more than 100 projects with prospective investments totaling trillions of pesos were made possible by the "green lane," which was established by Executive Order 18.

Green lane certifications, which expedite the processing of licenses and permits in relevant government departments, are granted to investments with a strong economic impact by the BOI's One-Stop Action Center for Strategic Investments (OSAC-SI).