BOI's investment priorities plan ready for PNoy's signature

The Board of Investments (BOI) has submitted to Malacañang its 2011 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) and is already preparing the specific guidelines for the IPP, BOI director Rudy Caña told a forum on Friday. BOI executive director Efren Leaño said the agency submitted to the Palace in mid-February the proposed 2011 IPP. Malacañang’s legal department still has to look over the plan and submit it to the Cabinet for approval. But Leaño looks forward that “hopefully, the 2011 IPP will come out in April." He noted that in previous years, the BOI submitted the IPP to the Palace in March and it was usually signed by the President in May. The 2011 IPP lists down 11 preferred activities, namely agriculture/agribusiness and fishery, automotive manufacturing, energy, green projects, infrastructure, mass housing, public-private partnership projects, research and development, shipbuilding, strategic projects, and tourism. Mining was retained in the Mandatory List, which covers activities that are required to be part of the annual IPP as provided under existing laws. Creative industries and business process outsourcing, on the other hand, were included in the Export Activities list. Under this year’s IPP, the extent of entitlement to incentives shall be based on the project’s net value-added, job generation, multiplier effect and measured capacity. — MRT/JE, GMA News