BOI set to review preferred investment list

The Board of Investments (BOI) is eyeing to overhaul the existing investment priorities plan (IPP) to ease certain restrictions in agriculture and manufacturing and attract more investors in these underrated industries.

The BOI was also planning to incentivize companies that have adopted an inclusive business model, a strategy that engages the poor and low-income communities as partners, customers, suppliers, and employees.

The agency would also be reviewing the continued inclusion of other industries in the IPP, including housing and power, BOI managing head Ceferino S. Rodolfo said on Friday.

The new IPP will cover the 2017 to 2019 period.

“If you look at the IPP now, there are a lot of restrictions in manufacturing, but this is the sector that has the capacity to generate decent jobs. Also, the key question for us now is what to do with housing and power. We will also see what [we can] do with tourism,” he said. He noted there were geographic restrictions at the moment for hotel developments.

He added there were also restrictions in agriculture as the IPP only provided incentives for projects put up in specific areas including the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The current IPP outlines guidelines covering eight preferred activities, namely manufacturing, agribusiness and fishery, services, economic and low cost housing, hospitals, energy, public infrastructure and logistics, and public-private partnership (PPP) projects. Also included were policies on corporate social responsibility, support to environmental protection and conservation, international standards certification, and outsourcing of production process or services.