Something's Fishy..., Philippines aiming to join China's resource boom Options

[risip]

From: http://news.ph.msn.com/regional/article.as...umentid=3676409

However, he said the Philippines must address some key Chinese concerns, particularly continued restrictions on foreign ownership and inadequate infrastructure.

"The first thing you have to do is improve your investment environment," Wu said, calling for a relaxation on rules limiting foreign ownership of assets.

Don't you guys think that there is something wrong here? It's like rape if such suggestion would be allowed.

Another direct quote from the said source said:

The government estimates the Philippines has 83 billion tonnes of mineral ore deposits.

The country's estimated gold ore reserves of four billion tonnes is the world's third largest, its 7.9 billion tonnes of copper the fourth largest and the 815 million tonnes of nickel ore the fifth biggest in the world, it says.

Why the need to have the Chinese involved when we could have develop our own mining capabilities and leverage with our own resources instead of continued dependencies from outsiders? What we may only need is the transfer of know-how from outsiders not them developing our resources for us.

[orient]

From: http://news.ph.msn.com/regional/article.as...umentid=3676409



Don't you guys think that there is something wrong here? It's like rape if such suggestion would be allowed.

Another direct quote from the said source said:


Why the need to have the Chinese involved when we could have develop our own mining capabilities and leverage with our own resources instead of continued dependencies from outsiders? What we may only need is the transfer of know-how from outsiders not them developing our resources for us.

The article said it all.

The Southeast Asian country has vast amounts of gold, nickel, copper and other valuable minerals, but for years its mining industry has underperformed due to bad governance, foreign ownership restrictions and domestic opposition.

However the Philippines has largely missed out on the economic windfalls the likes of Australia and countries in Africa have seen in recent years as they sold resources to power China's surging economy.

[matigasngulo]

there's a certain irony to it, since china is probably the only country in the world with same ownership restrictions as the Philippines. i sometimes don't believe why western dumb-f*cks can throw away their money there that way.. dunno they must be a dying people, no intellectual or moral vigor left at all.

if china is willing to lift its ownership restirctions like the Philippines, long live Free trade and common prosperity.

best filipino oligarchs pool their money together (paging messrs pangilinan & razon LOL) and buy some scrap mining equipment & knowhow in Russia or somewhere else.

[trismegistos]

there's a certain irony to it, since china is probably the only country in the world with same ownership restrictions as the Philippines. i sometimes don't believe why western dumb-f*cks can throw away their money there that way.. dunno they must be a dying people, no intellectual or moral vigor left at all.

if china is willing to lift its ownership restirctions like the Philippines, long live Free trade and common prosperity.

best filipino oligarchs pool their money together (paging messrs pangilinan & razon LOL) and buy some scrap mining equipment & knowhow in Russia or somewhere else.

Well, during the Cory administration, we have sold everything and privatised our GOCC like PNB, PAL, Petron, PLDT, National Steel, MWSS, various hydroelectric and geothermals, mothballed Bataan Nuclear, given Meralco,. The cronies and Kamaganak Inc. became the new oligarchs.
We have Import Liberalization, Contractualization, Scrapping of the Oil Price Stabilization Fund, etc.

Better to have the Public utility companies in Gov't hands, so as the people can pressure the Gov't for a fair prices of electricity, water, etc.

The pressures of Schultz and his Hitmen is too great, that subsequent administrations were all puppets and obedient to the New World Order and to be politically correct --- Globalization.

And it would take another Strongman with the backing of a strong people to reverse any or all of these.

I have been hearing some gossip about Marcos gold in China banks. And that many investors are coming to the Philippines. Perhaps, the Chinese investors have become the Benevolent Administrators of the Marcos wealth as Filipinos are too corrupt and inept to handle such resources and responsibilites in the same way that the late strongmen have Fil-chinese as stewards and frontmen like the likes of Lucio Tan.

This post has been edited by trismegistos: Oct 30 2009, 05:50 AM

[salamat]

I would rather not have China use us like they use Africa...use our resources to power China??? what does Philippines get out of this BS

[matigasngulo]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcolla...ese-australian/

even this pro-PRC hack has problems spinning the way that China does "business" with a country like Australia, not to say the African ones - inviting the First Gentleman to Golf was already the best treatment available...

Did you know there was an East Asia Summit going on? It was supposed to happen a year ago in Bangkok, and then there was a coup, so they moved it to Chiang Mai, then to Phuket, then to the world’s whoring capital Pattaya, and that had to be cancelled too, so now it’s happening in the more sedate resort of Hua Hin. (Memo to brewers: if you want a piss-up organised on your premises, don’t ask the Thais.)

One of the bigger real issues relates to the arrest in China of a man called Stern Hu. Yes, OK, let’s can the “Hu Hee” jokes. Hu is a perfectly normal name in China – the Supreme Leader bears it – and he adopted the name “Stern” after Isaac the great violinist. That’s several steps upmarket from a waiter I once knew who assumed the moniker “Stallone”. Mr Hu is a naturalised Australian, and was until his arrest in July the chief representative of Rio Tinto. He has been charged with bribery and the revelation of state secrets.

Serious stuff, eh? Well, that depends. China is far from being the only part of the world where doing successful business is likely to involve the odd brown envelope; of course it is against the law, but the law, like most Chinese laws, is only selectively applied. (We’re talking about a country where all extra-marital sex is illegal.) As for revelation of state secrets, well, releasing any information which has not been expressly passed for release by the authorities is against the law. It happens all the time, of course – I’m doing it now – but you can be pulled up for it if it’s in the national interest to do so. So Mr Hu is both guilty and not guilty, according to how sane (or, alternatively, bourgeois-liberal-decadent) one is feeling.

Kevin Rudd, the Sinophone Prime Minister of Australia, is at this meeting. Australia is in the tough position of having to pretend it is in Asia, as it would be foully racist not to, while not forgetting that it is the only country for thousands of miles which disapproves of chaps getting flung into the slammer at a whim. What he is up against, as he probably knows as well as I do, is the fact that the Chinese do not believe that a man called Hu can be an Aussie. We’ll see how far Mr Rudd gets.

Of course there is a backstory to this. Hu’s arrest was uncomfortably close in time to Rio Tinto’s refusal to allow the Chinese aluminium giant Chinalco to boost its stake in RT from 9 per cent to 18 per cent. The message was received and understood: China will not be allowed to muscle in on the world’s metals markets. OK, the Chinese said: say goodbye to Mr Hu, then.

Now, let’s try to maintain a little objectivity here. No-one wants to see the commodities markets dominated by China or anyone else. But that isn’t really what we’re looking at. Three firms – Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale – enjoy a virtual monopoly over the world trade in iron ore. China is where most of the world’s construction is going on, and the world’s economy is grateful for it. That the Chinese should want a stake in this market is hardly unreasonable.

That the Chinese should respond by arresting an Australian on highly dodgy charges is of course unreasonable. But if the Chinese are treated as people who must be shut out of world markets, how do we expect them to behave? The way forward is surely to lock China into world trade, where everybody’s prosperity depends on everyone else being reasonably sensible. The Chinese can grasp that – they’re not Russians, after all. Talk some sense into them all, Mr Rudd.

[risip]

The Southeast Asian country has vast amounts of gold, nickel, copper and other valuable minerals, but for years its mining industry has underperformed due to bad governance, foreign ownership restrictions and domestic opposition.

Bad governance is one thing that may have indeed marred the industry.

Domestic opposition, I believe, is welcome because mining is a double-edged industry that can both enable and destroy the country (most keen on the environmental aspect) and thus critical thinking and regulation is needed.

Foreign ownership restrictions is one thing that we should not consider to abandon. Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) under the guise of "strategic alliances" are seldom true towards an ideal cooperative venture, which can sometimes leave only fringe benefits to the host country. In writing, the terms might be good - but in practice (and several clauses later), the principal will always seek the position of advantage.

Thus, such should be taken with more considerable approach. This has to be handled with utmost scrutiny as this process of leaving the country open or further relax its policies for foreign ownership acquisitions can often fall to a race to the bottom scenario.

As in this case, should the government and the proponents move towards an MOU in the mining industry with the foreign government, let's hope that the following criticism for FDIs should be considered and worked around with fail-safe policies, i.e. FDIs can lead to Deceptive Industrialization - which stems from the following:

1. Imparting technologies to suit their needs and not the needs of the Least Developed Countries or Less Developing Countries (LDCs)
2. Generating economic dependence at a new level instead of economic independence
3. Draining the country of its resources in exchange for few and temporary high employment opportunities and production of consumer goods.

FDIs have their role especially with initial capital inflows and technology-transfers - but the host country needs to be pragmatic about this and be selective. Because the increased liberalization of FDIs can often result to unwanted outcomes based from the following criticisms as well:

1. Can challenge national sovereignty and autonomy.
2. Can lead to a lowering of labor, health, safety and environmental standards due to regional competition to attract investors.
3. Can decrease foreign exchange in the long-run because foreign principals import a substantial amount of intermediate inputs and equipment and repatriate profits.
4. May not lead to extra government revenues because of tax concessions, subsidies, and tariff protections.
5. May fail to fill savings/investment gap because foreign principals (usually through multi-national corporations or MNCs) stifle competition, reduce domestic savings rate, and crowd out investment of local firms.
6. Anti-competitive practices by MNC affiliates.
7. Volatile flows of investment and related payments that are deleterious for the balance of payments.
8. Tax avoidance and abusive transfer pricing by MNC affiliates.
9. Transfer of polluting activities or technologies.
10. Crowding out local firms and suppressing domestic entrepreneurial development.
11. Crowding out local products, technologies, networks and business practices, giving rise to harmful socio-cultural effects.
12. Concessions to MNCs, especially in export processing zones, allowing them to skirt labor and environmental regulations.
13. Excessive influence on economic affairs and decision-making, with possible negative effects on industrial development and national security.

The Philippines as an LDC but if forward-looking should opt for a more strategic approach through techno-nationalism with a goal...

TO CATCH UP WITH THE ADVANCED FIRMS IN THE INDUSTRIALLY ADVANCED COUNTRIES

This goal creates the critical strategic framework and justifies practices -- such as targeting and government-induced collaboration -- that may have to be abandoned or modified once catch-up has been accomplished. We should not be playing followers all along and subject ourselves from demands of others.

And we can follow the examples of our East-Asian neighbors to gain leverage on our own - and not play pawn.

As a specific example, we can acquire mining technology through purchase. But we develop our own technology from R&D and reverse-engineering to develop components locally (not to be dependent on equipment abroad). It can be self-sustaining once the technology is mastered since the money and metal from our own resources can definitely supply local mining equipment manufacturers with the necessary components and extend to other industries that needs metal resources. With a positive cycle, we can even leap-frog to other technologies and have the freedom to do it because we use our own resources.

Thus not only do we export raw materials, we also export components - and hopefully even technologies once we reach the creative stage of developing them.

However the Philippines has largely missed out on the economic windfalls the likes of Australia and countries in Africa have seen in recent years as they sold resources to power China's surging economy.

We need to power ours and let it surge as well.

This post has been edited by risip: Oct 30 2009, 11:02 PM

[Najjiah]

I would rather not have China use us like they use Africa...use our resources to power China??? what does Philippines get out of this BS

breeding with the natives to produce beautiful people for telenovelas? pinoy stars with chinese ad mixtures are very stunning.

[silangan]

China's hunger for resource is understandable. It badly need it at this time where its moving so fast, shaking heaven and earth, hook or crook,....they need it.

The future of our Minerals in the Philippines is put to the test. The temptation. Our Officials.

Looking for other sources of income, not tapping on the natural resource is best.