PBBM eyeing Japanese investments in PH agri

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is looking to talk with the Japanese as regards investments in the Philippines’ agricultural sector and its agricultural products entering the Japanese market.

Marcos made the remarks on board PR001 en route to his working visit here.

“Number one, that opens up [not just] the usual exchange of technology—but that’s an important part of it—but also, investment in agriculture, and, hopefully opening up markets in Japan for our agricultural products,” Marcos said when asked about his expectations.

“So that’s a very wide-ranging discussion. So, yes, we hope to do a lot in that regard [to accelerate our] agricultural development,” he added.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that Japan is the Philippines’ third largest export market with $10.73 billion worth of export re-

Gov’t, biz encouraged to implement budget tagging on SDG initiatives

Public and private sectors are encouraged to implement budget tagging on their initiatives related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to monitor the country’s investments in achieving the SDG targets.

During the Partners’ Event and Knowledge Café of the Joint Program on Integrated National Financing Framework (JP-INFF) in Pasig City on Wednesday, United Nations Philippines ceipts in 2021.

Resident Representative Gustavo Gonzales said it is imperative to integrate SDGs into national planning and budget processes and the private sector’s business model.

In the same year, Japan was also the country’s second largest source of imported goods with a total trade value of $11.11 billion.

During his five-day visit, the President is expected to engage in bilateral meetings with Japan’s business leaders.

Budget tagging aims to promote the prioritization of SDG-related programs, activities, or projects in planning, investment programming, and budgeting in national government agencies, local government units, and the private sector.

Gonzales said reporting and monitoring the public and private sectors’ financing in SDGs would help track and evaluate current spending on achieving these targets. It will also help in identifying SDGs with the least and most investments to guide future expenditure on these initiatives.

He said that based on the report of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), achieving the SDGs would reach by 2065 at current trends thus, the need to boost spending on SDG-related initiatives.

“If we continue these trends, if we leave things continue as they are now, we will reach the SDGs by 2065. So, we are under huge pressure,” he added.

Gonzales said the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has also made it more challenging to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

“The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, estimated that there is around USD3.7 trillion as a funding gap between the actual financing needs to meet the SDGs by 2030 and of course, what is provided by current investment level, with Covid-19 pandemic created additional capital needs,” he said.