High-ranking officials from the Philippines and India have explored strategic partnership opportunities between the two nations during a recent meeting in Manila. Finance Secretary Ralph Recto had a meeting with Harsh Kumar Jain, ambassador of India to the Philippines, at the Department of Finance (DOF) office on June 2, the DOF said in a social media post on Tuesday, without giving more details. In a video interview posted on the DOF’s Facebook account, Jain said he had a “very good meeting” with the Philippines’ finance secretary. “There are many areas of cooperation between our two countries where we can work together,” Jain said. “We had a discussion on the cooperation in the field of financial technology as well as development cooperation between our two countries,” he said. In the next few months, the ambassador said he hopes to see further progress on these two areas. India considers the Philippines as one of its important partners in Southeast Asia. “India is providing a lot of focus and attention to developing closer cooperation with the countries of Southeast Asia, and Philippines is one of the priority countries of our cooperation,” Jain said. Sought for comment on the outcome of this meeting with the Indian ambassador, Philippine finance officials have not responded as of press time. On its Manila website,the Embassy of India said there is an existing full potential between the two countries, “and there is a need to further facilitate trade … especially since both economies are growing and are complementary to each other.” As of March 2024, India’s exports to the Philippines stood at $350 million, while imports from the Philippines amounted to $92.3 million. The major items of export from India to the Philippines include engineering goods, automobiles part and accessories, transmission apparatus, electric transformers, petroleum products, semi-finished products of iron and steel, drugs and pharmaceuticals, organic and inorganic chemicals, electronic goods, plastic and linoleum, rice, bovine meat, oil seeds, tobacco, groundnuts and others. The embassy said the Philippines buys about 20 percent of India’s pharmaceutical exports to the Asean region. The major items of import to India from the Philippines include electrical machinery, semiconductors, ores, slag and ashes, copper, lead, plastics, pearls and precious stones, residue and waste from the food industry and animal fodder. India’s investment in the Philippines has mainly been in information technology and business process outsourcing, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, yarn and textiles, infrastructure (airport), chemicals, automobiles, agriculture, biomass energy, and fast-moving consumer. “Estimated Indian investments in the Philippines are valued around $5 billion,” the Embassy said.