Intercontinental London Park Lane Hotel
5 June 2012

Around 300 Filipino community association and charity leaders warmly welcomed President Benigno S. Aquino III during the meeting with the Filipino community of United Kingdom at the Intercontinental London Park Lane Hotel.

In his message, President Aquino reported that for the first quarter of 2012, the Philippines achieved a 6.4% GDP growth which is the second highest in Asia and the highest in Southeast Asia.  An all-time high of 1.148 million tourists also visited the country for the first three months of 2012.

He expressed his heartfelt gratitude to his kababayans for their warm reception in his first visit to U.K.  He enumerated several good news that the administration is undertaking to curb graft and corruption, as well as achieve economic growth.  Among these are infrastructure projects such as the NLEX-SLEX connector road project, the K+12 education program, housing projects for the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces, and agricultural programs towards rice self-sufficiency by 2013 for the country.

The U.K. is home to 250,000 Filipinos, the largest Filipino community in Europe.  Majority of them are highly professional and mainly employed as nurses, accountants and engineers.  Many are also in the highly skilled profession such as electricians and aircraft technicians.  Likewise, a large number of Filipinos are in the service sector and work as domestic helpers.

There are also a significant number of Filipino scholars in the U.K. who have been selected for postgraduate programs in distinguished British universities.

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