BOI Presents Investment Priorities Plan for 2014

●BOI wants to come up with an Investment Plan that is responsive to the needs of the investors and the community in general

A draft of the 2014 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) was presented by the Board of Investments (BOI) Sunday to various sectors in Cebu during a public consultation that aims to solicit sectoral inputs before finalizing the plan.

Executive director for the BOI-Industry Development Service, Ma. Corazon Dichosa, said the 2014 IPP will be in line with the priority thrusts of the Aquino Administration’s Philippine Development Plan (PDP) carrying the theme “Industry Development for Inclusive Growth.”

Objectives of the plan include increasing employment opportunities by revitalizing growth sectors, especially in the manufacturing industry and promote high value adding activities and deeper small and medium enterprises’ participation in supply chains, said Dichosa.

Likewise, the plan aims to strengthen the participation of growth industries in global and regional production networks including the ASEAN economic community, added the BOI official.

“We want to come up with an IPP that is responsive to the needs of the investors and the community in general,” she said.

Dichosa said just last February, the government approved the updated PDP 2014-2016 where it now focuses the growth of six priority sectors instead of the previous 13 sectors. These priority sectors are agro-industry, Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM), tourism, manufacturing, logistics and construction.

The 2014 IPP will also be in line with the PDP as it pushes for investments in the six priority sectors with the end-goal of increasing job opportunities marking social inclusive growth and thereby reducing poverty incidence by 2016.

“We want to attract investments with huge potentials in creating employment, moving up in the value chain, spillover effects and creating a competitive market,” said Dichosa.

The BOI official explained that apart from employment generation, the investments should move to a higher value chain. Here, she cited the upward shift from attracting call center firms to more higher value-added services like knowledge management in the knowledge process outsourcing.

Investments should also have the potentials to expand to other areas and create a competitive market amid the economic integration of the ASEAN community by next year, said Dichosa.

Compared to other countries, the Philippines has the highest fiscal incentive offer of 30 percent corporate income tax (CIT) rate to qualified investors with three to eight years of tax holiday after the start of the commercial activity. Great economies like Singapore only provides 17 percent CIT but its tax holiday period is up to 15 years while China’s CIT is at 25 percent with a tax holiday period between two to three years.

Dichosa said the 2014 IPP will not only be concentrated on providing fiscal incentives to lure more investments but will also work on other policies, strategies and measures that will help boost industries to be more productive and competitive.