The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomed the recent issuance of the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) hiking the investment capital threshold to P15B for projects assigned to the Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) in a bid to promote the ease of doing business in the country.

PCCI President Enunina V. Mangio said FIRB Resolution No. 003-24 would not only align certain processes in government but also empower IPAs to perform as it gives the agency more authority and responsibility in generating investments and granting tax incentives.

“The PCCI welcomed this recent issuance of FIRB. This would mean more projects will have to be decided quickly at the IPA level without going through the approval of FIRB, which became the bottleneck for incentives,” Mangio said.

Mangio hopes that such policy will encourage more local and foreign investors to infuse their resources and enter into big-ticket projects of the government through Public-Private Partnerships (PPP).

The FIRB maintained that the revised threshold is aligned with the PPP Code of the Philippines, which states that PPP projects with a cost of P15B or higher shall be approved by the inter-agency National Economic and Development Board upon favorable recommendation of the Investment Coordination Committee.

“One of the bottlenecks we have in government is the ease of doing business. We need to streamline our processes and policies so we become an attractive investment destination,” she stressed, adding that the Philippines needs to catch up with her ASEAN neighbors that have moved fast over the last 10 years.

The PCCI earlier identified some of the major industries that are ideal and attractive for local and foreign investments and could amplify the economic growth and competitiveness of the country. These sectors include agribusiness, IT-BPO and creative industries, manufacturing, mining and mineral resources, and tourism, among others.