The Canadian government wants to expand bilateral trade with the Philippines in the areas of agri-business, mining, defense and security, infrastructure and sustainable technologies.
Julian Payne, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, said bilateral trade between the two countries had been steadily growing though it had not been highlighted in comparison to the country’s trade with other nations like the US, Japan and even those in Europe.
“Bilateral trade between Canada and the Philippines run up to to an average of $1.7 billion. In fact We’ve been successfully in diversifying trade in recent years and last year trade rose to 15 percent last year,” Michel R. Bélanger, senior trade commissioner of the Canadian government’s Trade Commissioner Service said.
The two Canadian officials were in Cebu to attend the opening of the new Manulife Business Processing Services (MBPS) in the Mactan Newton in Lapu-Lapu City and give a media briefing on the launching of the 9th International ICT Awards Philippines on Nov. 25 last Monday.
The MBPS is the outsourcing arm of the Canadian-based Manulife Group.
Growing trade
Bélanger said the Canadian government recently signed a contract to deliver helicopters to the country and will look to deliver more vehicles and aircraft for use in rescue operations.
“Aside from Manulife, we also have Sun Life Insurance and CGI, an IT firm and Bombardier Transportation in Cebu. Our BPO firms employ 27,000 Filipinos in the country,” Bélanger said.
Payne said they are also looking into medical tourism as a potential investment area but added that more connecting flights to and from Canada as well as improved airport service are needed.
“We know that there are good doctors and hospitals here in the Philippines though a major concern is medical insurance because Canadians certainly want to avail of it. We also saw that efforts are being made to improve the airports,” he said.
Payne said the trade outlook between the two countries is upbeat.
“The balance of trade is in favor of the Philippines, roughly twice as much as the volume of what Canada exports to the country and interestingly there’s also a lot of ICT and BPO firms. Trade is growing with Canada’s increased focus on the Pacific and its increasing knowledge of the growth of the Philippine economy,” he said.