By Junex Doronio
MANILA — Amid all the political noise in the current year, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has revealed that President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s presidential and state visits have yielded $5.28 billion or P294 billion worth of actualized investments.
On Tuesday, December 26, the DTI said the amount of consolidated and processed investments from Marcos Jr.’s foreign trips has reached P4.019 trillion or US$72.178 billion.
With these staggering figures, the DTI further bared that more than 200,000 job opportunities are now open to Filipinos because of the official foreign trips of the President from the last quarter of 2022 until 2023.
Citing data from DTI, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) headed by former journalist and lawyer Cheloy Velicaria-Garafil disclosed that Marcos Jr.’s trips in 2022 generated 7,100 job opportunities from Indonesia (September 4-6); at least 14,932 job opportunities from Singapore (September 6-7); and 98,000 job opportunities from New York (September 18-24).
The President also brought home last year 5,500 job opportunities from his visit to Thailand on November 16-19; at least 6,480 job opportunities from Belgium (December 11-14); and 730 job opportunities from the Netherlands (December 15-17).
In 2023, the DTI said PBBM’s visit to China on January 3-5 opened 32,722 job opportunities; 24,000 job opportunities from Japan (February 8-12); 6,386 job opportunities from Washington, DC (April 30-May 4); and 8,365 job opportunities from Malaysia (July 25-27).
(IAMIGO/MNM)
