Aquino’s China visit to focus on trade and investments

MANILA, Philippines—The territorial dispute between the Philippines and China will take  a backseat as President Benigno Aquino and Chinese officials will focus their discussions on matters of trade and investments during his state visit to China, with trips to the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen next week.

Foreign Assistant Secretary Christine Ortega indicated that among the agreements that are expected to be signed is a five-year development program of trade and economic cooperation, from which the Philippines expects to get $60 billion.

“As you know this is a state visit. This will be a meeting between two heads of state. So being a state visit I don’t think that we will be there discussing, for example, the West Philippine Sea, saying to the other president that this ours and then the other president also saying that this is ours,” Ortega said at a news briefing in Malacañang.

“I don’t see them doing this because this is confrontational. Because we don’t want them to argue because they are heads of state,” Ortega added.

Ortega did say that Foreign Secretary  Albert Del Rosario has already taken up the issue of the West Philippine Sea territories with his counterpart in an earlier visit to China.

“I believe that the President would just say a few words (in connection with the disputed territories), saying that in general we agree to disagree. But we will keep our lines of communication, we will keep on talking and, hopefully, this state visit would improve or raise our bilateral relations with China on a higher level,” Ortega said.

Ortega said Aquino will be accompanied by several Cabinet members and 200 to 250 businessmen “who will look into enhancing reciprocal investment, trade and tourism opportunities between China and the Philippines.”

Ortega said the Philippines and China are in the final stages of reaching an agreement on a five-year development program for trade and economic cooperation, a memorandum of understanding between the Presidential Communications Operations Office and the state council information office on friendly exchanges, an MOU on sports cooperation and another MOU on tourism.

Asked how much investment the country expects to generate from China during the state visit, Ortega said the Department of Trade and Industry would be in a better position to give details but added that “we expect about $1.5 billion.”

The investments called for under the five-year plan are much, much more.

“The target would be something like $60 billion…. And we won’t have this target if it’s not going to be possible. We will work hard. I think this could be done,” Ortega said.