Thank you very much.

I would like to greet our former President and present Deputy Speaker, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; the Speaker of the Lower House, Speaker Martin Romualdez; also joining us is Senator Mark Villar from the Upper House of the Philippine legislature; our Ambassador to Japan, Ambassador Mylene Garcia-Albano; also one of the signatories and who is also joining us here is the former Senate President Manny V. Villar; the Chairman and CEO of Japan External Trade Organization Mr. Nobuhiko Sasaki; esteemed business leaders and signatories from Japan and from the Philippines; my fellow colleagues in government; other distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

I once again will thank you for considering the Philippines as a place and as a partner to grow your businesses.

The Government of the Philippines has been working to deepen the confidence in the Philippines of foreign investors and companies.

We have been advancing vital and game-changing reforms to improve the country’s business environment. And it is our hope that companies such as yours will not only find the Philippines to be an attractive investment destination. We are designing our efforts to encourage you to stay, and to find our country to be a place where your businesses will thrive.

We capitalize on economic liberalization laws and strategic reforms to attract companies like yours and facilitate ease of doing business.

Our goal is that with you as our partners, the Philippine economy will grow stronger and will generate more opportunities for our people.

With the Retail Trade Liberalization Act, the Public Service Act, the Foreign Investments Act,  and the provisions of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE), our policies offer more encouraging incentives to support foreign businesses, including those from Japan. We have also eased restrictions on foreign nationals to own businesses in the Philippines.

The Philippine government is also enabling cross-cutting mechanisms to ease investments.

Very soon, you can expect reduced transaction costs in aspects of doing business in the Philippines. We are mandating involved government agencies to establish a Green Lane. The lane will

streamline the processing of permits and licenses. We are prescribing a maximum of three working days for simple transactions, and twenty working days for highly technical transactions. This will also offer a single point of entry for strategic investments.

On a national scale, we have built confidence in our eight-point Socioeconomic Agenda. This set of agenda will reinforce the Philippine economy’s steady recovery and high growth trajectory.

We build our efforts around the intentions to further promote investments, improve infrastructure, achieve energy security, create jobs, and develop priority industries. I hope you will find it encouraging that our national priorities align with building enabling environments for companies like yours.

Once again, I thank you all for your continuing interest and confidence in the Philippines. And I look forward to our follow-through on our engagements today.

And as we look outside and see that the weather has closed up and the sun has gone into hiding, it does not matter because today is nonetheless a very, very bright day.

Together, we can make investments happen in the Philippines. Domo arigato gozaimasu. Maraming salamat po. Magandang umaga po sa inyong lahat. [applause]

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Watch here: Witnessing the Signing of Letters of Intent/Agreements
Location: Tokyo, Japan