Aquino’s visit to China to generate about $2-$7 billion worth of investments

PRESIDENT Benigno S. Aquino III’s first state visit to the People’s Republic of China is expected to generate about $2-billion to $7-billion worth of investments from various Chinese companies in support of the public-private partnership (PPP) projects of the administration.

Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary Cristino Panlilio gave this ‘ballpark figure’in an interview he granted with the members of the media at the Traders Hotel here, early Tuesday evening, hours before President Aquino arrived.

Panlilio was firm and positive about the ‘serious investments’ the government would get from various Chinese companies which would likely go to mining, infrastructure, energy, ship building, and the agri-business sectors.

Panlilio said there are Chinese mining firms that have expressed interests in joint ventures with Filipino companies given the country’s richness in major minerals such as gold deposits, copper, nickel, and chromite.

Panlilio also cited significant improvements made by the Aquino administration towards preventing corruption in the government based on the latest assessment made by the World Bank which could increase the level of confidence investors have in the country.

The DTI executive pointed out that President Aquino’s state visit to China has become so significant given the ‘historic high’ number of business delegation (250) that decided to get involved in this presidential trip.

“We’ve never had a business delegation as big as this in the history of presidential trips abroad and what is significant about this trip is that there was so much interest—and, of course, this is KKB (kanya-kanyang bayad).  Nobody is in for a free ride here. All [members] of the business delegation are putting good money to be here in support of the President’s drive, you know, for business and trade promotion,” Panlilio said.