03 April 2014 - The Philippine Embassy in Madrid organized a lecture tour entitled “Economic Outlook and Business Opportunities in the Philippines” in Madrid and Bilbao from March 18 to 19. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas and Mr. Jesus M. Zulueta, Jr..
Dr. Villegas, one of the top economists of the Philippines, is presently a University Professor at the University of Asia and the Pacific and a Visiting Professor at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) Business School in Barcelona. Mr. Zulueta, on the other hand, is the Chairman of ZMG Ward Howell and is Manila´s leading executive recruiter, handling many assignments at the CEO and senior executive search levels for Philippine and foreign corporations.
In both lectures, Dr. Villegas emphasized that the economic, political and institution-building reforms and other initiatives undertaken by the present administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III have made the Philippines the new Tiger of Asia, putting its sick-man-of-Asia-image behind, and that if these developments continue, the Philippines will be the 16th largest economy in the world in 2050. Dr. Villegas explained that the Philippines can sustain its growing economy because of the following engines for growth: 1) overseas Filipino workers (OFW) remittance – in 2013, a total of US$25 billion remittances from 10 million OFWs was recorded, 2) the growing Business Process Outsourcing industry; and 3) the Philippine Government´s effort in increasing public investment in infrastructure development through Public Private Partnership projects.
Dr. Villegas also explained what the Philippines could offer to Spain once the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is established in 2015. He described the Philippines as Spain´s best gateway to Asia and AEC. Dr. Villegas also introduced a new acronym, “VIP” which stands for Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, the three ASEAN countries which comprise ¾ of the AEC consumer market.
To support Dr. Villegas´ presentation, Mr. Zulueta highlighted the strengths of our country´s human capital which makes the Philippines the best place for investment. Mr. Zulueta lauded the country´s scalable educated talent pool. He underscored the fact that the Philippines is the world´s 3rd largest English-speaking country, the 12th most populous country with a 102 million population, 39 million of which belong to the working population, with 500,000 college graduates per year; and with a 93% literacy rate.
The lectures were followed by an open forum. The lecture participants were from Spanish or Spain-based businesses and institutions with interests in doing business in the Philippines.
The lectures were organized in close coordination with the Real Instituto El Cano and Ms. Susana Palomino, the Embassy candidate for Philippine Honorary Consul General for Bilbao. END