Rowel Barba, Undersecretary for the Competitiveness and Ease of Doing Business Group at the Department of Trade and Industry in the Philippines, visited the Chamber on 11 April. He and other members of the delegation were received by Chamber CEO Shirley Yuen, Chairman of the Asia & Africa Committee Behzad Mirzaei, Chairman of the China Committee PC Yu and members.

Barba introduced the work of the Group in boosting the country’s competitiveness, accelerating infrastructure development and facilitating e-commerce for businesses. He also expressed the Philippines’ desire to build stronger business ties with Hong Kong and Mainland China in light of the ASEAN-Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement, signed in November last year. He encouraged Hong Kong companies to import Philippine products and to outsource customer services to the country’s booming call centre industry.