Romualdez backs 99-year foreigner land lease to boost PH economic competence

House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, author of the House Bill No. 10755 which addresses issues from foreign investors regarding brief rental periods, backs 99-year land lease in hopes that it will boost the Philippine economic competitiveness in the coming years.

If the HB is to be signed, it is set to amend the Section 4 of Republic Act No. 7652 or the Investors Lease Act wherein the supposed maximum lease contract for foreign investors was previously set at 50 years but can be extended by another 25 years totalling to 75 years.

Once enacted, foreign investors will be required to have an "approved or registered investment" under Republic Act No. 11534, also known as the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act where additionally, the lease contracts would need to be registered with the province or city where the land is located.

Romualdez stated that they hopes that foreigners in the country would be satisfied and be interested in investing in the country’s land following the said proposal.

“We hope they would [will] be satisfied with the proposal. We hope it would attract new foreign investments and encourage existing investors to expand their businesses, thereby creating more job and income opportunities for our people and sustaining our economic growth,” he said.

Following the statement, Romualdez added, We want to be competitive regionally and globally in terms of enticing foreign investments.”

Following Romualdez’s support for the bill, the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) later on labeled it as a priority legislation.