Saturday, July 19, 2008 More Korean retirees settling down in RP
AN OFFICIAL of the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) said the number of Korean retirees who prefer to invest and reside in the Philippines has increased in the last three years.
Noehl Bautista, officer-in-charge of the Servicing Division of the Resident Retirees Servicing Center of the PRA, said that for the last three years, the number of Korean retirees increased by 20 percent.
However, she failed to mention the exact number of Korean retirees today in comparison to the previous years.
"Many Koreans now want to retire in the Philippines, some of them initially want to learn English language then eventually set up their own businesses here," Bautista told Sun.Star.
Bautista said PRA now has a total of 18,000 principal retirees. Most of them, she said, are Chinese, which share about 60 percent of the total retiree population, followed by Taiwanese, Koreans, and Japanese.
She added that PRA retirees are not only identified foreigners, but also those Filipinos who have become citizens of other countries.
She further said that Metro Manila caters to most of the retirees of the PRA, followed by the Visayas, and then Mindanao.
"Ten to 20 percent of our clients are located in Cebu. About 300 to 350 retirees are in Mindanao and, of this number, about 200 are located in Davao," Bautista said.
Bautista and another PRA official were here in Davao City for the launching of a new office to be set up inside the regional office of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
The launching of the PRA desk at the DTI-National Economic Research and Business Assistance Center (DTI-Nerbac) will be held on Monday highlighting the MOA signing between the DTI and PRA.
PRA chair General Egdar Aglipay will grace the event. (JGRS)
