Philippines Must Work Harder, Bush Envoy Says

The Philippines should improve its investment climate and work harder to sell itself abroad, a special representative of President Bush said today.

Elliot L. Richardson told a news conference that the first year of an international assistance program for the Philippines, launched with pledges of $3.5 billion in Tokyo, has been a success. But he said the Philippines must do more to attract private investment from abroad.

Richardson, appointed as Bush’s envoy to the Philippine Assistance Program, said Manila has made considerable progress in speeding up use of aid and implementing projects. But he said serious problems remain, particularly in improving the investment climate, clouded by bureaucratic delays, over-regulation, protectionism and security difficulties.

“The Philippines makes investment more difficult than any other country in ASEAN (the Assn. of South East Asian Nations), which is why Thailand gets a much larger share than the Philippines,” Richardson said.

He said the Philippines is failing to promote itself to major companies abroad, and suggested that Manila should set up special investment missions in both Tokyo and Brussels.

“There are real problems. The Philippines has placed itself in a position of comparative disadvantage in relation to other Southeast Asian countries,” Richardson said.