140 firms avail of job visa

A total of 140 companies based in the Philippines have availed of the special visa for employment generation (SVEG) being offered by the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to foreign investors and expatriates, it was learned yesterday. In a report to Immigration Commissioner Nonoy Libanan, Atty. Cris Villalobos, head of the BI-SVEG one-stop shop center said the companies represent the 217 principal applicants and their 120 dependents who were granted indefinite stay for providing jobs to Filipinos. Villalobos also reported that the government raised some P4.31 million in revenues from the SVEG applicants since the visa was launched in April this year. The SVEG was introduced pursuant to an executive order that the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed last November to reward foreigners the privilege to stay in the country indefinitely if they provide employment opportunities to Filipinos. Villabos disclosed that among the companies which availed of the job visa are the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), EEI Corp., Fontana Dev’t Corp. (FDC), SamSung Multi-English Company, Cathay Builders Center Inc., Fort Ilocandia Land Dev’t Co., Ilocos Norte Mining Co., and SME Networks Phils. Training Center. The 140 companies are situated all over the country where the SVEG one-stop shop centers have been established, including Metro Manila, Laoag, Davao, Subic, Boracay, Cebu, and Angeles City. A list of the 337 foreigners who were issued the visa showed that Koreans topped the list with 92 recipients, followed by 39 Chinese, 15 Taiwanese, 10 Americans, eight British, six Australians, six Japanese, five Malaysians, five Singaporeans, four Germans, four Indians, two Swedes, two Iranians, and two Canadians. Also in the list is an Albanian, an El Salvadoran, a Syrian, a Thai, a Dane, a Pakistani, an Austrian, a Bangladeshi, a Lebanese, a Yemeni, a Jordanian, a Frenchman, a Belgian, and a Greek. Villalobos bared that a combined total of more than 30,300 regular and full-time Filipino workers are in the payroll of the 140 companies wherein the foreign applicants have subsisting investments or are employed in managerial or technical positions. Under the rules, the SVEG is issued to a foreigner with an interest in a company or entity that employs at least 10 full-time and regular Filipinos workers either for managerial, executive, professional, technical, skilled, or unskilled positions. A foreigner applying for the visa shall certify that he or she maintains a lawful immigration status in the Philippines; engaged in a viable and sustainable business; exercises managerial acts with authority to employ, promote and dismiss employees; and evinces a genuine intention to indefinitely remain in the country. (BI News)