LONDON — The Philippines is a “hugely exciting” market where the United Kingdom
is keen on boosting reciprocal investment.
Key trade officials here bared
this bright outlook, noting that the UK was setting its sights on Southeast
Asia as a priority growth area amid the continuing dim prospects in Western
economies.
They said the UK hoped to step up
trade with growing markets to combat a general sense of pessimism over economic
numbers here and in the euro zone.
Nick Baird, chief executive of UK
Trade and Investment (UKTI), the state body that links UK firms to the global
market, said that British firms were looking at ways to tap the Philippines’
robust economy and invest in major infrastructure, health care and
retail-related projects.
“I think that for us, the huge
opportunities there are certainly around big infrastructure projects, health…
We’re also very interested in areas I would describe as building on and working
with countries’ growing middle classes, so [it’s about] providing better
education, health services, accessing the consumption of these middle classes
through the retail sector,” Baird told Asean reporters on a visit here.
Enjoys Brits’ confidence
Baird said the Philippines
enjoyed the confidence of the UK business community, particularly of Richard
Lambert, former head of the UK employers group, the Confederation of British
Industry (CBI), and now chancellor of the University of Warwick, a top British
university.
“We have a lot of very strong
champions for the Philippine market. I was talking recently to Mr. Lambert,
former head of CBI, which is our biggest business organization and he’s saying
the Philippines is a hugely exciting market,” said Baird.
The Philippines is currently
regarded among the world’s booming markets and is expected to retain in the
second semester the 6.1-percent growth rate it posted in the first half of the
year.
International credit ratings
agencies Moody’s Investors Service, Fitch Ratings, and Standard and Poor’s
upgraded the country’s rating to a notch just below investment grade, citing
the Philippines’ steady growth pace.
The UK is sending a trade mission
to the Philippines this week to touch base with the government and business
sector and discuss possible partnerships in social infrastructure and
transport.
Participating UK companies
include Arup, Tata Steel International, Kier Construction, Tony Gee &
Partners, GE Healthcare, Ryder Architecture, IMC Worldwide, SKM Colin Buchanan
and KM&T, top firms in construction, design and architecture, project management
and consultancy, services and supply chain management, according to the UK
Embassy in Manila.
Total bilateral trade between the
Philippines from January to August of this year was placed at 512.9 million
British pounds (P33.8 billion), a five-percent growth over the same period last
year.
‘Asean is very important’
Such an economic glow in the
Philippines, also mirrored across the region, is a bright spot amid continuing
economic troubles in the euro zone and the slow recovery in the United States.
The latest UK growth rate was placed at one percent and the struggle to raise
this is expected in the next few years.
“The Asean is really very
important to us not just because this is such, collectively, a huge economy,
comparable in size to China and Japan, bigger than India, but also because in
many of the countries, we have good strong positive relationships,” Baird said.
Expand export capacity
He said the UK hoped to establish
greater two-way trade with Asean firms, stepping up both export and inward
investments. Currently, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are among the UK’s
major trade and investment partners.
More than half of UK exports go
to the developed but currently struggling markets and it has only a 1.2-percent
share of imports in major growth markets, including the whole of Asean.
“Britain wants to hugely expand
its export capacity, with particular focus on the growth markets and, in that,
the Asean markets have a special place for us. And second, this is a country
that is massively open to foreign investors and companies of all kinds. It’s
very easy to set up business here,” he said.
He said the UK aimed to double
its trade with each of the Asean countries by 2015. And while concerns about
political stability, corruption and business ease may remain, the UK holds the
view that there is “far less risk to trade with Asean than there is to trade
with China, Africa or India,” he said.
Giving Asia attention
“We have been trading
successfully in the last few years in our European backyard and with the United
States, but of course those markets are still weak and we need to get much
better trading into the big growth markets of Asia, Latin America and Africa,”
Baird said.
The UKTI, through the year-old UK
Asean Business Council, is hoping to facilitate this exchange through spreading
greater Asean market awareness to UK firms, said the council’s executive
director, Tom Burden.
“We are working on raising
awareness of Asean markets in the UK. It’s really about giving Asia the
attention it deserves,” Burden told reporters in a separate briefing.
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