Great British Festival 2024 (19-20 October 2024) Manila

Great British Festival 2024

  • THE British Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (BCCP) announced the return of the Great British Festival; following its great success in its return last 2023 since its hiatus in 2019 due to the pandemic–in partnership with the British Embassy Manila and the British Council
  • Celebrates UK-Philippine Friendship Day on 20 October 2024
  • A total of 38 UK Companies and over 50,000 attendees joined the event in 2023
  • GBF 2023 Activities: Radical Sportscars F1 simulators, Bike show by Triumph Motorcycles, Bathbomb making by Lush, Samples and selling of One World Butchers, Union Jack Tavern, Quorn, The Borough Pizza Pub, Face-painting and Caricature making
  • GBF 2024 aims to host a much-larger event with more British companies to join

For further information contact BCCP at info@britcham.org.ph 

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UK – Philippines Trade Data (2nd August 2024)

UK - Philippines Trade Data

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Diplomatic Reception on the Terrace of the House of Lords

 

 

Gabriella Quimson Vice Chairman  Philippine British Business Council(PBBC)  and His Excellency Ambassador Locsin arriving the House of Lords.

Joseph Miro Chairman of Philippine British Business Council(PBBC) was also present at a Diplomatic Reception on the Terrace of the House of Lords to hear a speech given by the Rt Hon Lord Howell of Guilford.

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PBBC 30 years Anniversary

 

PBBC Members from left to right: Former British Ambassador to the Philippines Paul Dimond, David H. Bill, Rowena Romulo, Dr. Gabriella Tuason Quimson, Chairman Joseph Miro, Melissa Dizon, representatives from the UK’s Department for Business and Trade Priya Soni and John Williams, and Alistair M. Fulton, taken at the Philippine Embassy in London during their May 2024 meeting.

As the Philippine-British Business Council (PBBC) moves towards our 30th anniversary, under our new London Chairman Joseph Miro the background for the further development of bilateral trade and direct investment opportunities for both countries has never been stronger. The value of UK exports to the Philippines in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023 was £1.3 billion (+16%), with imports of £1.7 billion (+22%). Services contributed about 40% of the former. UK outward direct investment to the Philippines in 2021 reached £449 million. In recent years, cases of inward direct investment have also grown.

In 2024, we have welcomed among others as members of the PBBC London Dr Gabriella Tuason Quimson and Mr Stephen Philips. Dr Quimson is a governance and anti-corruption specialist. Her father was Philippine Ambassador to the Court of St James’s in the 1980s. She has long experience in the UK and holds both Filipino and British citizenships, dividing her time between the two countries. Mr Philips was appointed Senior Adviser at BDO Unibank in January 2024, in a long career focused on cross-border trade, investment and finance in Asia. Before his appointment as Chief Executive of the China-Britain Business Council in 2006, he had been International Trade Director of UK Trade and Investment in the British Government.

As a business-led apolitical body, the PBBC works closely with both Governments’ trade and investment Departments, with much non-financial support from the Philippine Embassy in London and the British Embassy and the British Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines in Manila. Individual PBBC members (all volunteers) have cumulative experience of trading conditions and contacts of well over 100 years. Unlike other surviving Business Councils, the PBBC itself has long adopted the policy of focus on those sectors offering the more obvious opportunities. These have included IT, agribusiness, energy and retail and we are currently aligning our focus with sectors identified by both Governments.

We offer a free service of advice in the UK to bona fide companies new to the market and are happy to hear from British firms interested in the Philippine market, whether diversifying from other ASEAN markets or completely new to the region, whether they wish to export products or services, find joint partners in the Philippines or invest there directly for longer-term market share. We are equally happy to hear from Philippine companies seeking partners in the UK or looking for direct investment opportunities.

 

All contacts should be directed to info@philippinebritish.com

 

Philippine-British Business Council

London

3 June 2024

 

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UK Export Finance

Discover what the UK offers in finance to support major projects when buying UK Goods and services.

UK export finance

Clink on the link below to see a presentation of the UK Export Finance Scheme

> > UK export Finance – Competitive finance when you buy from the UK < <

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Feb 25

Vehicle Electronics and Big Data in The Philippines

One of the journalists who came with the Business Delegation to the Philippines in November 2015 was Steve Rogerson, the editor of Vehicle Electronics magazine and the M2Mzone website.

Steve has been to the Philippines several times and is knowledgeable about business in the Philippines.

He has published two articles as a direct result of his visit with the PBBC.

The first is an excellent summary of the Philippines in the Vehicle Electronics magazine:

read the article here:  http://vehicle-electronics.biz/content/philippines-focus-take-your-fill

If anyone is interested in the increasingly complex and sophisticated electronics in current and future cars, then I highly recommend the Vehicle Electronics magazine which can be found here: http://vehicle-electronics.biz/

The second is ” PLDT strategy to use big data to transform the Philippines” and it can be found here:  http://www.m2mzone.com/pldtalph

PLDT is the Philippines Long Distance Telecommunications company and the article discusses the way they intend to make use of Big Data to provide a range of services to the population and businesses in the Philippines. PLDT is the equivalent to BT in the UK and is the major telecoms supplier in the Philippines.

Steve can be contacted via either of these websites.

Additionally, Steve has just written a very interesting application of IOT (Internet of Things) technology to keep track of endangered dugongs in the Philippines. A UK based company has created a novel app which is used by local fishermen in the Philippines to record locations of sightings of the rare dugong which will in turn help with the conservation of these vulnerable marine animals.

You can read it here at http://www.m2mzone.com/dugphil

 

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Feb 03

Philippine Tourism Increase

Statistics from the Philippines Department of Tourism in London show a significant increase in Philippine tourism from the UK.Philippines Tourism

At the same time Philippine Airlines have announced the imminent increase in direct flights between London and Manila to seven days per week. Daily flights will be starting in the next few months.

Visitors Arrivals from the UK to the Philippines has risen by 14.8% from Jan – Oct 2015 over the same period the year before. This represents 123,414 visitors which represents only about 2.8% of all arrivals into the Philippines. A full analysis of Philippines Tourism Statistics and arrivals over this period can be seen at Philippine Tourism Statistics or at http://e-services.tourism.gov.ph:8080/didcs/Static%20Documents/October2015_Table2.pdf

The Philippines Department of Tourism (PODT) has increased it’s activity to promote more tourism into the Philippines from the UK.

PDOT London has rolled out its new website (www.itsmorefuninthephilippines.co.uk) featuring inspiration ideas and content on the destination as well as package offers to the Philippines from UK tour operator partners.
The Philippines Department of Tourism (PDOT) London will be participating at the Destinations Show (4-7 Feb 2016) in Olympia, London and the London International Dive Show (11-14 Feb 2016) in the Excel exhibition centre. It will also be exhibiting at the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Exchange in March to meet with tour operators.

Philippines Department of Tourism London currently has a campaign on the Conde Nast Traveller magazine where subscribers and visitors to the site can win a luxury holiday to the Philippines.

http://www.cntraveller.com/promotions/philippinestourism
Philippines Department of Tourism London is also organising a number of press trips to the Philippines including Bloomberg and notable wildlife personalities, Nigel Marven and Kate Humble from the BBC.

Update September 2016:

·            Total earnings gained from tourism activities for the first half of 2016 amounted to an estimated Php 127.37 billion. This recorded a double-digit gain of 14.70% compared to Php 111.05 billion for the same period in 2015. The month of February recorded the biggest receipts of Php 27.49 billion, as well as, the highest growth of 42.09%.

 

·         For the first half of 2016, the country has welcomed a total of 2,978,438 visitors. This volume is 13.70% higher than the accumulated 2,619,625 arrivals in January to June 2015. Consistent growth is sustained all throughout the first six months with double-digit increases recorded from January to April.  

 

·         There were 86,873 arrivals from the UK during the said period, representing 14.27% growth. The UK ranks as the 9th top visitor market for the Philippines as of June 2016.
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Dec 17

Amazing Statistics About The Philippines

Amazing Statistics about The Philippines is all about some of the most significant statistics that we discovered on our recent business delegation to the Philippines in November. We regularly report on the economic indicators of the country but what we have here is a selection of the most significant statistics over and above some of the economic numbers.economic performance

I mentioned the business delegation. That delegation included 35 representatives from a wide variety of organisations. This in itself is an amazing statistic and shows the increasing interest from UK companies in doing business in the Philippines.

Population

The population in the Philippines is now over 100 million and growing at a rate of around 2% per annum. The average age in the Philippines is 22 – yes, twenty two! Around 50% of the population is below the age of 30! part of this can be explained by the birth rate but part is explained by the fact that several generations of Filipinos went overseas to find work and now send significant sums of money back to the Philippines in the form of remittances. However, many of that older generation are now returning to the Philippines.

Employment

The current unemployment rate in the Philippines is 6.5% in 2014. How many Western countries would give anything to have a figure like this. In the Clark Development Zone, just north of Manila, the Daily Wage Rate is US $7.76.

Telecomms

The Philippines has a world-class telecoms infrastructure, partly driven by the BPO and call centre industry which now employs over 1.2 million people. The voice call centre industry in the Philippines overtook India a couple of years ago.

There are currently 70.5 million mobile telecoms subscribers, 35 million internet users and 3 million broadband users. The telecoms usage in the Philippines is directly as a result of the population profile, the increasing BPO and call centre industry and the investment in telecoms infrastructure which has been driven from Government and Industry foresight.

We have been told that one third of all Facebook traffic worldwide emanates from the Philippines. It’s that population profile again!

Economics

Real GDP growth in the Philippines has been positive every year since 2004. Eleven years of unbroken GDP growth is an outstanding achievement in the light of the global financial turmoil throughout that period. Current GDP growth is in the region of 5.6%.

Infrastructure growth has been in the region of 2.0% of GDP for the last few years. This will increase to 5.0% in 2016.

The Philippines has moved up the world competitive index from 85th to 52nd in the last 5 years. That’s 33 places up the countries league table.

Summary

We could go on about many more statistics, and indeed we will, to show the positive direction of travel of the Philippines on the world stage. It used to be Asia’s best kept secret, but now more and more companies are getting the message and taking notice of the Philippines as an attractive and substantial market for product and services, a superb place to site a South East Asia headquarters, or as a cost effective and high quality manufacturing and outsourcing location.

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Dec 15

Successful Business Delegation Visit November 2015

Another successful business delegation visit took place in November 2015 organised by PBBC members from the UK and the Philippines.

letters presentation

Amb. Tambunting, Amb. Ahmed & Nigel Rich

 

The visit coincided with the 20th Anniversary of the formation of the PBBC and the event did not go unnoticed by the respective heads of government of the two countries. Framed copies of letters received from David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, and from Beningo S. Aquino III, the President of the Philippines were presented to the two Chairmen of the PBBC; Nigel Rich and Ambassador Jesus Tambunting at a reception in the British Ambassador’s residence in Manila.

 

The business delegation included 35 representatives from over 40 organisations and companies. the delegation members broadly fell into the following categories: PBBC members, businesses new to the Philippines, businesses with existing operations in the Philippines and a number of journalists who were researching the Philippines for major articles they are writing about the opportunities in the Philippines.

A wide range of British companies registered for the delegation. The types of companies included Insurance Underwriters, Playground Equipment manufacturers, Construction, Oil and Gas, farming, farm animals, Telecomms, Wood Products, BPO and Call Centres, Internet and Mobile Software, Security Tags, Candle Manufacturer, White Goods and Furniture retailer, international Bank and supplier to the sugar industry.

 

Highlights of the Programme

Economic Briefing by Banco de Oro

BDO presentation

BDO Presentation

Delegates were given a fascinating and thorough presentation by Jonathan L. Ravelas, FVP and Chief Market Strategist of BDO. The talk included statistics for financial, population and business activity. we also had an insight into the candidates for the upcoming Presidential election in the Philippines in 2016.

 

Presentation by PEZA

Elmer San Pascual, Group Manager gave a detailed presentation of the PEZA scheme for overseas companies looking to start operations in the Philippines.

 

Meeting with DTI undersecretary, Ponciano C. Manalo jr, Governor, Board of Investments.

PBBC Reception at the residence of the British Ambassador

Subic Bay SBMA

Subic Bay Management Authority

 

Meetings with ECCP and BCCP

We had a joint meeting with representatives of the European and British Chambers of Commerce of the Philippines.

PBBC and MBC luncheon

Meeting with PCCI Philippines Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Asian CEO Awards

Asian CEO Awards

Asian CEO Awards

The PBBC and delegates took a table at the dinner and presentations of the Asian CEO Awards. This was a black tie dinner and awards ceremony at the Marriot Hotel in manila for over 1,200 attendees.

Visits to Subic Bay and Clark Economic development Zones

 

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