GMA puts up new investment promo body

President Arroyo has put up a new investment promotion body, to be known as Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Center, through which potential projects for private sector participation would be processed under the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

The President created the newest government agency under Executive Order (EO) 144 which she issued last Nov. 2, the same day she arrived back from her official trips in Hawaii, Mexico and California where she undertook investment promotion activities for the country.

Under EO144, a copy of which was obtained by The STAR yesterday, the Coordinating Council for Private Sector Participation (CCPSP) which was attached to the Office of the President will be transferred to the DTI and will be reconstituted into the BOT Center which will serve as an investment promotion body and not a regulatory agency."

The BOT Center shall be headed by an executive director with the rank of undersecretary who shall report to DTI Secretary Mar Roxas II.

The president said the DTI was mandated by the Administrative Code of 1987"to promote and develop an industrialization program effectively controlled by Filipinos and shall act as catalyst for intensified private sector activity in order to accelerate and sustain economic growth."

In reorganizing the CCPSP, President Arroyo invoked Republic Act 7718, otherwise known as the Amended BOT Law, which identified the Coordinating Council of the Philippine Assistance Program (CCPAP) as the agency responsible for the coordination and monitoring of projects implemented under the BOT Law.

The Chief Executive recalled that this CCPAP was created under Administrative Order (AO) 105 issued in 1989 during the Aquino administration. The CCPAP was first reorganized and converted into CCPSP in 1999 by virtue of AO 67 and further amended by AO 103 in the year 2000 during the Estrada administration.

In AO 67, the CCPSP was mandated as the government agency responsible for facilitating, coordinating and monitoring BOT and private sector participation projects.

President Arroyo, repealed all these previous orders and created her own BOT Center in line with her administration’s revised Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP).