President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo relayed the good news to the Filipino community during a dinner meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in Newark on Saturday night.

The President had earlier met with the private sector including financial leaders in New York at the Waldorf Hotel, among them executives of the Coca-Cola Company who had just brought back their plant in the Philippines with a $100 million dollar investment.

“But today they announced their expansion plan that will total, including what they put in since they bought the firm and what they had to put in the next few years, they announced that their total investment is going to be $1 billion dollars,” the President said.

As part of their corporate social responsibility, Coca-Cola Philippines has also partnered with the Food and Nutrition research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to help address iron-anemia deficiency in the Philippines by providing malnourished schoolchildren since 2005 with NutriJuice which is fortified with iron, zinc, lysine and vitamins A and C.

For 2009-2010, Coca-Cola Philippines will distribute NutriJuice to some 30,000 schoolchildren for 120 feeding days in the provinces of Quirino, Zambales, Palawan, Davao, Bukidnon and the cities of Tacloban, Marikina, Taguig and Pasig.

During the media briefing Saturday morning at the Waldorf Hotel here, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the Philippines continues to enjoy a conducive investment climate due to the President’s timely reforms and masterful steering of the economy.

He said the President met with Dr. Vassils Morfopoulos of Basic International Development Corporation, one of the prospective investors in the Philippines.

Remonde said a number of hedge fund managers based here in New York, the world’s top financial market, also discussed with the President various investment prospects in the Philippines.

The President, according to him, had a lunch meeting with hedge fund managers in the US “who are looking for a safe and attractive investments abroad to ensure the growth of the capital entrusted to them.”

“And because of the upgrade Moody’s gave us, very rarely during the time of the global crisis, the Philippines is now emerging as an attractive investment destination,” Remonde said. (PA9-Pagadian City)

Last update: 05-08-2009 00:31