2016 Philippines Business Mission

The US-ASEAN Business Council is now registering senior-level executives for its 2016 Business Mission to the Philippines.  The Mission will begin with a pre-mission briefing on the evening of Tuesday, August 9, and finish by the late afternoon of Friday, August 12. Participants should plan to arrive in Manila by Tuesday afternoon, August 9, for a pre-mission briefing that evening. 

The deadline for registration and submission of materials is Friday, July 22.  

Click here to Register

This year's mission to the Philippines is timely for a number of reasons.  Foremost is the election of Rodrigo Duterte as President, and the opportunity that the Mission presents to meet the new officials in his administration and learn first-hand the priorities of the new government.  After a convincing win among a crowded presidential field, Duterte has an effective mandate to pursue the policies that he espoused during his campaign and broadly laid out in his economic agenda.  The details on the implementation of these policies—which include accelerating infrastructure spending, addressing restrictive economic provisions in the Constitution, and increasing investment in the agriculture sector—will be critical to discerning where opportunities lie for U.S. firms over the next several years.  The meetings with senior government officials in the new administration during this year’s Business Mission will provide a means to discern these opportunities.
 
The Philippines is also expected to have among the fastest economic growth rates out of the large, developing ASEAN economies in 2016, despite external headwinds.  The World Bank projects that the Philippines’ GDP will grow 6.4 percent this year, and 6.2 percent in 2017 and 2018.  With a median age of 23 years-old, the Philippines is one of the youngest countries in Asia.  However, it has yet to reap fully the demographic dividend that will help propel economic growth in the coming years.  Nevertheless, the new government will still have to pursue appropriate policies to maintain economic growth rates at around the 6.2 average from over the last several years.  The United States is the Philippines’ second largest export market and source of imports, accounting for just over 14 percent of exports and nearly 9 percent of imports in 2014, as well as the second largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI), which stood at US$5.1 billion cumulative as of 2014.  This means U.S. firms are well positioned to lend insight to the new government on how to further expand Philippine-U.S. economic relations and maintain these high levels of growth.  This year’s Business Mission provides just such an opportunity for our Members.