EU companies eye services sector

EU companies eye services sector

By Estrella Torres
Reporter

THE delegation of the European Commission in the Philippines said European companies remain optimistic about putting investments in the country, particularly in the field of service markets.

Luc Vandebon, delegation's head for political, economic, trade and public affairs, said there are continuing discussions to improve trade relations between the EU and the Philippines and one of the main areas of interest of the EU companies is the service markets in the Philippines .

"There is worldwide phenomena on the service markets making progress and EU companies have spent efforts and time to look into it," said Vandebon.

He said the particular interest of European markets include the areas of financial services, legal services and management services.

The EC said the " Philippines remains to be a better place for investment, but there are enormous competition from other countries."

Vandebon, however, said the Philippines remains to have a competitive advantage when it comes to service markets because a large number of work force in the country speak English fluently.

Another issue of concern for the European investors is the ongoing strife between government forces and the Muslim secessionists under the group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Earlier, Gijs de Vries, EU coordinator on antiterrorism who visited Manila on Monday to convince the government on the importance of passing anti-terrorism laws, said security measures are important to attract foreign investments.

"If we want to see improvement in foreign investments [in the Philippines ], we should eliminate terrorism because it [terrorism] is the direct enemy of our common fight against poverty," said de Vries.

Despite the optimism of foreign investments in the Philippine services markets, the government is cautious about fully opening up the sector.

Foreign undersecretary for economic and international relations Edsel Custodio said the Philippines is still in the process of assessing the threats and implications of opening up the services sector.

"We are still in the process of assessing the general agreements on trade services [GATS]. It [service sector] remains to be our biggest asset, but we should still come up with sectoral competitiveness assessment," said Custodio in a separate interview at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

He said member-countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have agreed to continue negotiations on the modalities in Geneva , Switzerland , in April this year. Custodio said the Philippines is particularly interested in how it can effectively benefit from opening up the services trade sector.

"The government is now intensifying its assessment to identify clearly what sector we could liberalize, including the modes of supply," he said.

However, he said the Philippines is comfortable in the GATS negotiations as the government has made sufficient alliances with developing countries which are also performing well in the services sector, including India .

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/2006/0208/08%20econ%20eucos.php