President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. said Thursday that his administration is geared towards developing the domestic market considering its vast potential for both foreign and local investors.
“We are encouraging not only foreign investment. We are also encouraging local investment because we feel there is potential in the market,” the President told a roundtable meeting attended by the top CEOs of Cambodia.
“A hundred and seven [million] people is a big market and we have to develop that market. We have not developed our own markets. And I think that is another potential that we can exploit down the road,” Marcos pointed out.
The President told Cambodian businessmen that he wants to improve the country’s manufacturing sector.
The goal, he said, is to have a balanced economy on the contributors to the gross domestic product (GDP) between the manufacturing side and the service side.
“Right now, it’s very, very much skewed to service sector. So again as I said, we have a more balanced economy, we are trying to build up the manufacturing side of the economy and that is why capital-intensive investment will be very, very important for us to be able to do that,” Marcos said.
At the same time, the President said the government has to address local businesses’ concerns to ensure ease of doing business, noting the administration must address the red tape in the bureaucracy.
“Once we can digitalize and digitize our operations, the bureaucracy, the national government and the local government, then things will be much, much easier. Because any investment really has to also be approved at the local government level,” Marcos said.
