TRADE and investment between Australia and the Philippines could grow by 10% this year, aided by the investment missions exchanged by the two countries, an Australian Embassy official said.
“It should grow by 10%. It’s going to grow. There are now so many Australian companies that are coming here, and Filipinos are coming to Australia,” Luisa Rust, minister-counselor and senior trade and investment commissioner of the Australian Embassy, told reporters on Friday.
She cited the base the two countries are starting from as “so low now … we are underperforming if you look at the volume that is in Singapore, Indonesia, or Thailand; we are not performing as well as we should be.”
In 2023, two-way trade between Australia and the Philippines totaled P378 billion, while two-way investment was P321 billion.
There are over 250 Australian companies operating in the Philippines, with staffing of 44,000.
According to Ms. Rust, Australian companies are not that familiar with the Philippines.
“I think when they think about exporting, they go to Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam, and that is why (trade) missions are so important,” she said.
“We need to bring them here to see how developed Manila is and the consumer economy in action … so that they really understand that there is this great opportunity that is here to be able to sell their products,” she added.
According to Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Hae Kyong Yu, a business delegation composed of Australian technology firms will be visiting the Philippines in March.
“This is very much where we felt that there was an opportunity for Australian companies with cutting edge technology in some of these digitalization spaces to come in and share their technology and experience with you,” Ms. Yu said at a briefing on Friday.
The delegation is hoping to find “local partners (with whom) to roll some of this out for the benefit of the Philippines,” she added.
Ms. Rust said that the focus of the mission is cybersecurity, financial technology, AI, and blockchain.
“Those are what Australia is good at, and we make sure that we match them up with what the demand is in the Philippines,” Ms. Rust said.
“We always bring about 20 so that we can make sure that we can do some really good tailored business matching, finding partners for them to work with, like maybe Filipino tech companies or potential customers for their technology,” she added.
On Friday, the Australian Embassy brought together Australian businesses operating in the Philippines for updates on developments within their industries.
Among them is Austal Philippines, which discussed the possibility of developing a vessel for the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the construction of hydrogen- and wind-powered vessels.
Austal Philippines President Wayne Murray said that the company is currently in talks with the PCG on a vessel that can match up well with ships fielded by the China Coast Guard.
Austal operates a shipyard in Cebu.
“There are no firm contracts at the moment, but we’ve been working with their technical team to establish (specifications) on a vessel that would… match what the Chinese Coast Guard is doing, or preferably be better than them,” Mr. Murray said.
He added that the company is working with a European firm on a hydrogen-powered vessel, while the wind-powered vessel is being studied for routes between Europe and the Americas.
Another company at the briefings was Qantas, which said that a new service to Brisbane will be launched next month.
Qantas Manager of Communications and Government Affairs Oliver Craven-McLeay said the new service is optimized for connections to New Zealand and the rest of Australia.
“If you think about our current Sydney services, they’re very heavy with corporate traffic … These Brisbane services would be much more about visiting family and friends, serving tourism opportunities in both directions,” he said.
“There’s a huge number of Filipinos who are interested in Australia and vice versa. So we’re really excited about these flights,” he added. — Justine Irish D. Tabile