BOI drawing up 3-year investment plan

The Board of Investments is drawing up a three-year medium-term investment plan, BOI managing head Vincent S. Perez Jr. said.

The plan will cover the years 2002, 2003 and 2004. According to Perez, the medium-term investment plan will be in the same vein as the government’s medium-term export plan which sets specific targets and maps out the strategy for attaining such targets.

The objective of the plan, Perez said, will be to increase Investments, reduce the cost of doing business, adopt consistent and transparent policies, increase employment, develop small and medium enterprises and support other export winners.

Helping develop the plan are the BOI, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), the National Development Co. (NDC), the Bureau of Small and Medium Business Development (BSMBD), the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), the Center for Industrial Competitiveness/National Manpower and Industrial Training Council (CIC/NIMTC), and the Small Business Guarantee Fund Corp. (SBGFC).

The BOI has already developed a similar plan for this year. However, according to Perez, this year is considered to be a transition year for the Arroyo government since it only assumed power late January. The government, he felt, would be able to come up with a more focused plan for a short three-year period after this year.

To increase investments, the BOI plans to have a more active and focused investment promotion through the creation of investment teams and having promotion targets.

For this year, for example, the BOI is concentrating on five sectors-agri-business, logistics, information technology, tourism, education and training.

Under its plan, BOI also intends to have a better coordination of promotional activities. The Investment plan of the BOI will lay emphasis on reducing the cost of business in terms of less regulation and avoiding costly business-related litigation.

Perez also wants to ensure that the Arroyo government will adopt consistent and transparent investment policies by harmonizing all investment policies by the end of this year.

The plan’s main goal is to increase employment. For this year, the Arroyo government hopes to generate 30,000 new jobs, 25 percent of which will come from the small and medium enterprises. – Marianne Go