European Trade Group Chief Picks Philippines over Vietnam

The president of European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, Guenter Taus, still chose Philippines over Vietnam after visiting the latter to compare how the two countries are doing business.

Taus said that despite of being way behind other countries in terms of investors coming in to the country and many investors choosing Vietnam over Philippines, the country has “fairly large advantage” because of many Filipino workers who are proficient in English.

The chief of the European trade group said in an interview in ANC that it is 30 to 35 percent cheaper to employ people in Vietnam but looking for worker who can efficiently speak English can be more costly and hard to control.

"Overall, our labor force is very outstanding in English. That’s one of the obstacles we’ve seen there," Taus said.

Taus added that in Vietnam, employees are allowed to have only 10 percent overtime therefore; the companies are obliged to hire more people making it more expensive on their part.

Moreover, doing business in the Philippines is much easier than in Vietnam because the rules there “kept on changing directly” according to Taus.

What worries Taus is the imminent Package 2 of the tax reform program that the Duterte administration is working on as well as the unsteadiness of the political state of the country because it could affect the effectiveness of the country. He said that the Philippines is walking in a “very, very dangerous road” and it could mean harm to not only incoming investments but also current investments.

Taus added that in the last months, the political state of the country is still unstable because of uncertainty.

“The last thing you want as a businessman is uncertainty. We can live with risk but we can’t live with uncertainty," he explained.