ECCP, gov’t step up efforts to win Italian investors

The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, with some local trade officials, will be meeting with some Italian businesses this week to convince them to invest in some of the country’s key growth sectors.

ECCP president Hubert D’Aboville said the delegation, which would also include Italian Ambassador to the Philippines Luca Fornari and Asian Development Bank executive director Michele Miari Fulcis, would be touring Milan, Padua and Turin in their bid to “sell” the Philippines as an investment destination.

“We will go to all the chambers of commerce there to promote the Philippines. This is purely a private sector initiative, but we proposed to the government to go with us. We’re investing a lot of time and energy into this,” he said.

The number of businesses that the delegation would be meeting in the three Italian cities, he said, would be no lower than 100. In Milan alone, around 100 businesses had already committed to meeting with the Philippine group.

Among the key industries that the group would be “selling” to Italian investors included the Joint Foreign Chambers’ Seven Big Winners: tourism, medical travel, and retirement; mining; business process outsourcing; agriculture; infrastructure; energy; and manufacturing.

“We’ll present these sectors, what the Philippines has to offer, and make them select where they think they fit the best,” D’Aboville said. “Some have already expressed interest to invest here. One of them, a power distribution company, is looking at a joint-venture company (Paris-Manila Technology Corp.),” he said.

He said Department of Trade and Industry and Board of Investment representatives would most likely be marketing the government’s public-private partnership projects.