PANANAW MULA SA PALASYO

We arrived late Saturday night after accompanying the President in a five-day swing which took her to Shanghai, Shandong, (in China) and Mumbai, New Delhi and Agra (in India).

President Arroyo kicked off her visit to Shanghai by addressing the Council for the Promotion of International Trade and the Shanghai Overseas Chamber of Commerce. She expressed the hope that, although it is not growing at the same rate as China, the Philippine economy, with its new level of maturity and stability given its strongest macroeconomic fundamentals in 20 years, and the many excellent opportunities in a range of sectors, particularly mining, technology, energy, tourism, bio fuels, infrastructure, and business process outsourcing, will share in the economic boom that China is now enjoying.

As it grows by leaps and bounds, China continues to be one of the world’s biggest consumers of metal, resulting in trade between our countries of approximately $300 million in Philippine copper cathodes and nickel ores, accounting for our No. 3 and No. 5 top exports to China respectively.

As one of the top five mineral powers in the world, the world’s biggest mining players from Australia, Canada, and Japan are now in our country to invest and to conduct exploration activities.

Mining continues to be a key driver of our economy and an important sector that is bringing in significant levels of investment, creating jobs for the people and spurring exports. We are also on our way to becoming a “mining country” by 2010. As defined by the World Bank, a country can be called a “mining country” if its mining industry contributes at least 6 percent to its total exports. Currently, our mining exports are about 4.6 percent of total exports, are expected to rise to 8.6 percent of total exports by 2010. 

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The meeting between the President Arroyo and President Hu Jintao was held in a very cordial atmosphere and erased any lingering doubts on the strength of Philippine-China relations which may have been affected by the broadband project controversy. The President explained the difficult decision not to continue with the broadband project. President Hu expressed his understanding. China remains committed to our confident, mature and comprehensive relations.
 

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In her speech at the Global Policy Summit on the Well-Being of People with Intellectual Disabilities in Shanghai, President Arroyo announced her acceptance of the kind offer of Dr. Tim Shriver, a recent Manila visitor and a member of the prominent Kennedy-Shriver clan, of funding for a special education program that will benefit children with learning disabilities.  (During the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics,  where President Hu, President Arroyo, Dr. Shriver were the principal guests, celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan and Yao Ming cheered their  respective athletes).

She also described how the Philippines not only subscribes to the millennium framework for action towards an inclusive, barrier-free and rights-based society for persons with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific, but is now observing, pursuant to a 2002 Presidential Proclamation, the  Philippine Decade of Persons with Disabilities from 2003 to 2012.

In our country, the private sector has done the bulk of the work through advocacy programs, workshops for children with mental and learning disabilities, and livelihood and trade skills training to high functioning students.  The private sector also regularly participates in the Special Olympics World Games.  For the 2007 Shanghai Special Olympics, the Philippines sent 52 athletes to compete in nine games. Our special athletes bagged two golds in bocce (similar to lawn bowling), one silver in swimming and one bronze in bowling. In this connection, President Arroyo signed a Memorandum of Agreement outlining the Philippine government’s commitment to support quality growth of special Olympics programs to reach more athletes, families and communities, empower athletes as leaders, and change attitudes toward people with intellectual disabilities.   

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Her  state visit to India, were she was met by President Pratiba Pratil, the first ever woman President of India; Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, considered one of the most influential figures in India’s recent history because of the economic reforms he initiated, and Sonia Gandhi, was a whirlwind of official and  business meetings. The President met with leading Indian companies in diverse industries such as biofuels, business process outsourcing and steel.  One such meeting was with Praj Industries, which focuses on renewable energy. Praj is currently doing a project in the Philippines on ethanol blending, and expects to produce the first flow of Filipino ethanol to get into the market.  They will also be signing an agreement with the Department of Agriculture for the joint propagation of sweet sorghum, which has a higher ethanol yield than sugar cane

For business process outsourcing, she met with WNS, India’s largest BPO company, Sutherland Global Services, which helps companies design, build and manage their customer management operations, and the Hinduja Group, which is one of the largest diversified groups in the world spanning all the continents.

WNS expressed appreciation that the Philippine government is training call center employees and now considers the Philippines an attractive destination for Indian companies in the BPO and call center industries.  Sutherland, on the other hand, is mobilizing its operations in the province of Camarines Sur and creating 300 jobs there before the end of the year.  They are also expanding their facilities in Clark, and planning to open offices in Davao and Iloilo.

Besides the expansion of its call center & BPO business in the Philippines through HTMT Global Solutions, the Hinduja Group has entered into a joint venture with the  with Department of Energy on the production of compressed natural gas (CNG).  It will also be working with the PNOC and the DOE to establish a distribution network for CNG

The President brought home the proverbial bacon consisting of around $ 2 billion worth of new investments, of which $1.6 billion will be plowed in by Global Steel of Mitall for the construction of an integrated steel mill in Iligan City. Bollywood producer Aditya Taj Kapoor also committed to make a movie using the Philippines as location site.

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