GOV’T EYES NEW NORMAL TO ATTRACT INVESTORS

The government is eyeing a “new normal” way of attracting foreign investors by offering tailor-fit incentives for companies that the country wants to locate here.

In the next investment road shows, the government will identify the foreign companies , talk to them, ask them the incentives they will be comfortable with and lay down the tax and non-tax inducements.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III bared this new normal in enticing investors as the government ditches its “one-size –fits-all” incentives.

The new normal for investors is part of the government’s efforts to reenergize the economy, and create more jobs under a post-quarantine environment

Dominguez said the shift to a demand-driven approach will have the government identify the types of industries that the economy needs to flourish, so that incentives can be granted based on the specific requirements of the industry players that it wants to set up shop in the country.

These industries include those that are labor-intensive and thus create stable, decent-paying jobs; provide excellent technology transfers that improve the skills of the country’s workforce; and have stable markets, Dominguez said.

“What we should be doing is identifying these industries and then going to each of the companies–each of the leading companies in those industries around the world—and asking them: what do you need for you to come to the Philippines? Instead of waiting for them to apply, we should be going to them and offering them a package,” Dominguez said during a virtual press briefing held on the sidelines of the recently concluded online “Sulong Pilipinas: Youth Partners for Progress” workshop.

Dominguez noted, for instance, that companies manufacturing microchips have a different set of needs from businesses that grow flowers for export, hence the need to tailor-fit incentives for specific industries.

He said President Duterte’s economic team and the Congress are now in the process of crafting a comprehensive stimulus program to revive the economy waylaid by the coronavirus disease 29019 (COVID-19) pandemic.