Key industry players reach consensus in LIRA project

By Rhia de Pablo Updated July 16, 2009 12:00 AM

CEBU, Philippines – With the signing of a memorandum of agreement, local government unit representatives and selected key industry players in Cebu signified their support to the Philippine Retirement Authority’s (PRA) Local Integrated Retirement Area (LIRA) project.

The LIRA project was launched last June with the objective of bringing together business establishments and the government sector to a mutual covenant of supporting our local retirement industry and recently a memorandum of agreement has been signed in the Crown Regency to gather the support of various industry players.

In an interview with reporters, PRA chairman retired Gen. Edgar Aglipay said that the LIRA is one of their projects aimed at organizing tourist destinations all over the country to become integrated retirement areas.

He said that the MOA that was signed also integrates the housing sector to the medical sector and the entertainment industry so that foreign retirees will have “preferential treatment” and discounts in purchasing units, renting apartments and hotel rooms as well as in availing medical treatments and entertainment services.

“We want to provide our foreign retirees with preferential treatment and good privileges so we are organizing our big cities and tourist destinations so that they will be able to cater to the needs of these retirees in housing, medical services and entertainment,” said Aglipay.

He said that through their integrated program, they do not need to develop a single facility before they can aggressively promote the country’s retirement industry because it will utilize existing facilities offered by our key cities such as hotels, condominiums, hospitals, golf courses and amenities needed by foreign retirees.

Currently, the PRA has about 21, 000 retired enrolees in its special resident retirees visa (SRRV) program which provides foreigners the privilege of having a permanent and indefinite stay in the country.

Aglipay said that this year, they target to enrol 4,000 more retirees and 25 years from now they are positively looking at enlisting a million retirees by then.

“If each of these one million retirees would spend 1, 000 dollars a month, it would mean a billion dollars injected directly to our economy and this is much higher to the ones earned though our OFW remittances. Every retiree also provides average of four jobs so that would mean four million jobs for the country,” said Aglipay.

He said that there is a lot of potential in tapping retirees all over the world and even just around Asia, there is already a sufficient number because China has around 80 million retirees, Japan has 35 million, South Korea has eight million while Taiwan has around six million.

Meanwhile, Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Consul Samuel L. Chioson who represented Cebu’s business sector stressed in his message that the task of promoting the Philippines as a retirement paradise is in line with their organization’s vision as the engine of growth towards global competitiveness.

“The launching of LIRA was a wake up call for the Chamber to also think about its member-companies and figure out what else can be done to enhance tourism in the retirement industry. It was a realization that the business sector should utilize the period of slowdown to build up resources and programs towards this end,” he said.

Chioson said that to date, PRA together with the Cebu Investment and Promotion Center (CIPC) and CCCI have gone through brainstorming sessions on program concepts by which the LIRA project can take off and so Cebu can become a home away from home not only for local tourists but for foreigners as well.