Prior to the presentation, Philippine Ambassador to Spain Carlos C. Salinas met with the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Zaragoza, Mr. Manuel Teruel. During the meeting, Mr. Teruel mentioned that there is a growing interest among agriculture and power generation SMEs in Zaragoza that would like to explore business opportunities in the Philippines. Ambassador Salinas emphasized that it is the objective of the conference to provide more information to these companies about investment opportunities in the Philippines.

Ambassador Salinas delivered a presentation that highlighted the potential of the Philippines as a gateway for Europe to Southeast Asia in terms of its strategic geographic location, history, cultural ties with Europe and Southeast Asia, population and workforce. It also provided the audience with the developments in the Philippines in terms of fundamental demography, current socio-economic setting, political framework, economic profile, and tourism.

The Ambassador strongly encouraged the companies to include the Philippines in their investment destination list, considering the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community this year, and that the Philippines has already received a Green Card on Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing (IUUF) from the European Union.

To further encourage the participants to invest in the Philippines, a company that is already doing business in the Philippines was invited to give a testimony of its experience in the country. Grupo Jorge, a group of companies involved in food and energy sectors, gave a presentation on the experience of Rivasam, a member of Grupo Jorge, and an active exporter of meat to the Philippines. END