Japanese firms eye green lanes for investments in PH

MANILA – Japanese companies remain interested in investing in the Philippines as they expect express lanes in the country to facilitate their investments.

In a statement Thursday, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said the agency had a business dialogue with Japanese firms wherein they expressed their interest to explore expansion and diversification of products to be manufactured here.

Most of these firms are in the manufacturing of electronics and medical devices, the DTI added.

These Japanese firms include Brother Industries, Canon Inc., Seiko Epson Corp., Terumo Corp., JMS Co., Ltd., ROHM Co., Ltd., NIDEC Corp., Minebea Mitsumi Inc., Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and IBIDEN Co., Ltd.

The DTI said these companies are eyeing around USD3 billion (PHP150 billion) investments in the country.

“However, they expressed concerns and said these plans are facing operational and fiscal bottlenecks. They cited as examples the timely issuance of travel visas for their executives and engineers, the processing and release of permits and licenses by regulatory agencies, VAT (value-added tax) and other additional taxes by LGUs (local government units), and access to Covid-19 vaccinations,” it said.

The Japanese firms are requesting a green lane for significant foreign investments like what other governments in Asean provide to investors.

They added these express lanes would help in making the country remain competitive in attracting foreign investments.

“As the Philippines builds back better from the pandemic, we will strengthen trade and investment ties with other countries, particularly Japan. After all, Japan has been a strong and important trading partner and investment source of the Philippines. The country is an ideal host for Japanese manufacturing and R&D (research and development) activities in electronics, printers, and medical devices,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said.

Japan is the country’s top source of foreign investments in the first quarter of the year, accounting for 54.1 percent of the total approved foreign investments.