Aside from opportunities in tourism and real estate, industry captains and business entities, as well as the public sector in the Philippines are looking for ways to expand the investment spheres of Qatari and other foreign investors in the country, an embassy official has said.
Chargé d’affaires Roussel R Reyes made the statement in the wake of a series of visits by high-level business delegations and government agencies from the Philippines aimed at wooing Qatari investments in a wide range of sectors.
“We’re looking at additional opportunities and more sectors to attract foreign investors into the Philippines. We are both hopeful and optimistic that we will be able to encourage Qataris to pour their investments into the country,” Reyes told Gulf Times yesterday. But Reyes was also quick to recognise the role of the Philippine private sector.
He said: “It is part of our efforts to strengthen bilateral cooperation but we also have to recognise the efforts of the private sector in trying to forge and strengthen the efforts to cooperate across several sectors…it’s not just the government that is trying to attract and do its best to expand horizons towards a partnership between the public and the private sector.”
In 2015, a 22-member delegation from the Philippine Qatar Trade Initiative (PhlQat) held exploratory talks with officials of Qatar Chamber around the areas of telecommunications, agriculture, real estate, aviation, information technology (IT), petroleum and logistics, tourism and hospitality, and business process outsourcing (BPO), among others. PhlQat is a joint undertaking by the Philippine’s private sector in co-operation with government agencies together with Qatar Airways and Qatar Chamber.
It was also in 2015 when executives from the Medical Mission Group Hospitals and Health Services Co-operative Philippines (MMGHHSCP), under the auspices of the Philippine Business Council-Qatar (PBC-Q), first held talks with prominent members of the Qatar business community to explore the prospects of a Filipino hospital in Qatar.
In late January, the Philippines’ secretary of the Department of Health (DoH), Dr Paulyn Jean B Rosell-Ubial, was in Qatar to witness the MoU signing between MMGHHSCP CEO Dr Jose Tiongco and a Qatari investor for the establishment of the first Philippine polyclinic here.
Last year, Qatari investors have expressed keen interest on the Aerial Ropeway Transport project, which is expected to rise in Cebu City, during a presentation in Doha by the Cebu Trade Mission.
The visit and dialogue between transportation officials and local government executives from the Philippines and Qatari investors held in Doha late last month was an offshoot of the Aerial Ropeway Transport project.

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