BPO industry in the Philippines will continue.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia allayed fears of those working at business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the country following the pronouncement of President Rodrigo Duterte that he was cutting the country’s military and economic ties with the US.
Almost all of the BPOs operating in the Philippines are owned by US-based.
Pernia clarified that Duterte didn’t mean that the Philippines would cut its economic ties with the world’s only remaining superpower and the treaty ally of the country.
He added BPO companies had been helping in increase dollar inflows to the Philippines.
“BPOs will continue. BPOs will not be touched. They have provided us with foreign exchange and it’s now even higher than or it’s going to be higher than OFW [overseas Filipino worker] remittances,” Pernia said.
The secretary said the President is only “rebalancing” trade from the West to Asia particularly China, and there is nothing to get feared of.
“He mentioned about separation. The way to understand that is what we are really going to do is to rebalance our economic relations from too much dependence from the West to the Asian region,” Pernia said.
He added that “China is a major player in this growth area. And for a long time, we have not taken very seriously our economic relations with China. This time, we feel we should really engage with China stronger.”
“In effect, we are really broadening our investment and trade base from too much dependence on the West to greater attention to the Asian region,” he said.
“So it is a rebalancing. It is not a separation. It is a rebalancing of economic relations to a broader base of trade and investment relations,” Pernia said.
He said that Duterte’s “solid” economic team would have the final say on the President’s trade policies.
“The President has a strong economic team, very solid economic team. And whatever economic pronouncement, it’s really the economic team that makes the final say,” Pernia said.
“It’s not separation. As I’ve said, you have to parse it as a rebalancing, as a reconstructuring of economic relations from too much dependence on the West,” he added.
“We will maintain our ties with the West, Europe, with Japan of course, and the US, the Latin America, and even African countries. The more relations you have in different parts of the world, the better for the economy,” Pernia said.