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MANILA, Philippines - The standoff at Scarborough Shoal is unlikely to derail the Philippines' economic relations with China, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said on Wednesday.
"We are not affected by political issues. Our position in DTI is to continue promoting our trade and investment with China and just put the Scarborough issue on the side," Undersecretary Cristino Panlilio told reporters.
"We will push through our plans and promote investment and trade in China as scheduled. In fact, we continue to patronize the Chinese exhibition events," Panlilio said.
He said DTI aims to visit China four times this year to strengthen the relationship of both countries.
"We are not downsizing our efforts to ramp up and increase our trade in China, particularly on the exports side. By the way, China right now is already our number one trading partner both in exports and imports," Panlilio added.
Data from the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed that exports to China grew by 35.7 percent year-on-year to $588.89 million last February.
On top of this, the Chinese contributed about 8.1 percent to approved foreign direct investments (FDI) in the Philippines last year.
Manila enjoyed P256.1 billion in FDI last year, up by 30.6 percent from P196.1 billion in 2010.
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