Press Releases

Article by Andrea San Juan of BusinessMirror

The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) said the European Union is aiming to become one of the Philippines’s top five sources of foreign investments and urged the Southeast Asian nation to improve the implementation of reforms.

“When it comes to FDI [foreign direct investments], Europe is not the top five. It’s our goal to bring Europe to the top five,” ECCP President Paolo Duarte said during the European-Philippines Business Dialogue forum on Thursday in Makati City.

Evariste Cagatan, Board of Investments (BOI) Executive Director for Investment Promotion Services, said during the same forum that investment promotion agencies (IPAs) greenlit investments of more than P480 billion in the first half of 2025.

Of the total investments in the pipeline in 2025, however, Cagatan said about 20 percent were from Singapore, South Korea, the United States, China, and Japan.

“While we have introduced the necessary reforms to support the implementation of the strategy, what needs to be done now is we execute and harvest the fruits of those policy reforms,” said Cagatan.

She acknowledged that the Philippines still needs to attract investments from European firms, saying “because it’s not as much as we would want to.”

“But you have seen the complementation between our target priority growth areas and where Europe is very strong,” she added.

Duarte pointed out the importance of the “execution” part of the existing reforms of the Philippines which aim to liberalize the economy to make it more attractive for investors.

“So, we are not asking for more reforms. We are asking for the execution of the existing reforms. I think that’s where we need to make the biggest effort,” he said.

“Out of the European investments in Asean, only 4 percent landed in the Philippines,” he added.

The ECCP chief called on the Philippine government and the private sector to make this 4 percent a “bigger number.”

In pursuit of growing European-sourced investments in the Philippines, Duarte underscored the importance of the free trade agreement (FTA) between the Philippines and the EU.

Next week, the EU and the Philippines will have their fourth round of negotiations for the EU-PH FTA.

Duarte said the EU side will be flying to Cebu next week to give their feedback, to provide the “real sentiment of the European industries in the country.”

“To see where we have opportunities, where we see the reforms being executed, where we see also the pain points. There are pain points that we need to address, because to advance the FTA, we need to be transparent,” added the ECCP President.

Data from the BOI showed that total trade between the Philippines and the EU amounted to $15.54 billion in 2024.

Of which, $8.07 billion are Philippine exports to the 27-member bloc while $7.46 billion are imports from the EU.