First of 3 parts
SHRUGGING off the shrill opposition to the setting up of the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), which would be the country’s first sovereign wealth fund (SWF), President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that it was his idea. No wonder his cousin Speaker Martin Romualdez is the principal author of House Bill 6389 which will mandate the setting up of the fund.
Of course Marcos didn’t pluck the idea out of thin air.
Singapore set up its first SWF, Temasek, in 1974 and another one, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. in 1981, with assets of both estimated at $1 trillion today. Koreans set up theirs, the Korean Investment Corp. in 2005. Malaysians organized its Khazanah Nasional (in Malay, “National Treasure”) in 1993. The Socialist State of Vietnam set up its State Capital Investment Corp. In 2005, inspired by the tremendous success of its sister socialist country’s SWF, the China Investment Corp., whose assets now total $1.3 trillion — the biggest such entity in the world.
The Indonesians organized theirs, the Indonesia Investment Authority, in the midst of the global Covid-19 crisis last year. Set up initially with $5 billion assets from the Indonesian government, other funds such as those from the United Arab Emirates, Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the US International Development Finance Corp have committed to beef up its assets to $10 billion.
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