The Philippines, through its President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., has successfully secured a commitment from Macquarie Group Ltd., a leading Australian firm, to ramp up its investments in the Philippines. This landmark agreement was forged during President Marcos’s participation in the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit in Melbourne.
“I am excited to talk about what more we can be doing in the Philippines because at the moment we do advisory work in the investment bank, we bring our balance sheet to invest in,” said Macquarie Group Managing Director and CEO Shemara Wikramanayake.
“The whole digitization process, we’re excited about. Also, the energy transition we’re excited about … we certainly invest in digitization and we invest in energy transition and in mining and building a bigger advisory business,” she added.
Wikramanayake expressed interest in the Philippines due to its demographic profile with “a young and growing population,” presenting “a bigger opportunity in terms of growth and organization” for their company.
President Marcos praised Wikramanayake for Macquarie Group’s interest, emphasizing their significant role in the Philippines’ development, especially in the digitalization process for both investors and locals.
“We somehow have fallen behind in that regard, and we’re trying to catch-up,” President Marcos said, referring to digitization. “Digitization is a very important part of the ease of doing business not just for investors but for locals in their dealings with the government.”
President Marcos stressed that there is a great deal with Macquarie Group that the Philippines can explore beyond what was discussed on Tuesday.
“I don’t see any part of what we’ve discussed so far that is not applicable to our ground plan for the economy of the Philippines. So, again, we’re very open to any insights you might have to improve the investment terrain in the Philippines,” he added.
Macquarie Group Limited has been operating in the Philippines for over 15 years, with more than 1,000 direct employees. They previously managed a significant infrastructure fund and acquired a majority stake in Energy Development Corporation (EDC), the Philippines’ largest renewable energy company, in 2017-2018.
A Macquarie Asset Management (MAM)-led consortium manages 1.5GW of renewable energy generation capacity across geothermal, solar, hydropower, and wind for the EDC, representing approximately 20% of the total installed renewable energy in the Philippines.
TATAK MNL 
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