BUSINESS tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan and major Japanese investor Mitsui & Co. has expressed commitment to invest $600 million in infrastructure development in the country.
Pangilinan bared this in a dinner meeting on Wednesday, February 8, with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr,, who is on a five-day official visit to Japan in a bid to strengthen relations with a longtime Philippine ally.
“We signed an agreement with Mitsui and several parties and management to commit to invest $600 million in the infrastructure,” Pangilinan said.
Mitsui & Co., meanwhile, also eyes investments in priority sectors of the administration of President Marcos, particularly in agriculture, infrastructure and renewable energy.
Mitsui also lauded President Marcos for his “strong leadership” in steering the economy and vowed further collaboration with Philippine businesses.
Mitsui said it will continue “exploring the possibility of further collaboration with the Philippines in business areas of mutual interest,” including food and agriculture, renewable energy and digital transformation.
President Marcos thanked Japanese businesses for their assistance to the Philippines in a wide array of development areas.
“We can point to so many of the developments that happened in the Philippines with the assistance of the different Japanese funding agencies and government-to-government arrangements, the commercial arrangements — and these have been to the benefit of both our countries,” said Marcos.
“And it is a particularly auspicious time that we come again now simply because we have to now restart our own economies, we have to transform our economies, and again the partnerships I think that we have developed with our friends here in Japan, with Mitsui in particular… we will have to revitalize them as they have been dormant, to a degree, during the lockdowns of the pandemic,” the chief executive pointed out.
The President said he looks forward to the “discussions that we’ll be having” as he expressed “great hopes that this will be the driver of our economy.
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