16 September 2015 – The Philippine Consul General to New York Mario L. De Leon Jr., met with business leaders belonging to the top 1,000 U.S. companies based in New Hampshire to explore partnerships and open trade and investment channels in cooperation with local Filipino community members.
Consul General De Leon, accompanied by Ms. Jocelyn Santiago of the Fil-Am Association of Manchester, New Hampshire, and Consul Felipe Carino, met with Mr. Jim Broom, CEO of the Direct Capital, a financing company which offers financial packages to small-medium businesses and facilitates connections between vendors/ franchisors to clients/ franchisees. He also met with Mr. Chad Carlton, Executive Vice-President of Maquet Medical Device Co., a company specializing in cardio-vascular, thoracic, and pulmonary medical devices exported to Asia.
Consul General De Leon told Mr. Broom that the great economic strides made by the Philippines has led to a significant boost in internally-generated revenues and the GDP, a result stemming from the active support of good governance practices by the Aquino administration. Domestically, the Philippines is improving its infrastructure, as well as developing its credit system to be able to support the implementation of mega-scale projects. In the international scene, Philippine companies such as Jollibee Food Corp. and ABS-CBN’s The Filipino Channel have an established footprint in the US, with a market of about 3.5 million Filipinos and Filipino-Americans, he added.
Mr. Broom noted that Filipinos interested in starting a business can apply for financing with Direct Capital, not only in the restaurant sector but in the hotel, hospitality and nursing/care homes sectors, which are all potential areas of growth.
Ms. Santiago believes in the impact of offering a credit facility to Filipino businesses offered by Direct Capital and in promoting Filipino food business among kababayans, patterned after the success of other Asian countries that have grown their own culinary and restaurant business identity.
In his meeting with Mr. Chad Carlton, Consul General De Leon and his delegation were given a tour of the Maquet medical device facilities in Merrimack, New Hampshire, which is the main plant dealing in devices for cardio-vascular diseases for the US market. The main products of Maquet include stents and devices for cardio-thoracic and bio-surgery.
The Consul General relayed how the launching of the ASEAN Economic Community by the end of this year opens a new potential market of over 600 million people. He suggested that Maquet should consider the Philippines an investment destination, with the country being a gateway to the region and possessing of a skilled labor pool. END