The Philippines pitched the electronics and semiconductor industry in attracting investments at the Philippine Business Forum of the most influential tech event in the world, CES.
In a presentation at the CES in Las Vegas on January 6, Aleem Guiapal, deputy director-general of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority(PEZA) also highlighted the recovery of US-Philippines bilateral trade the past year
The forum was led by delegates from the Department of Trade and Industry, PEZA Semiconductor and Electronics Industries of the Philippines Inc. among others.
Guiapal discussed the Philippines’ strength in the semiconductor and electronics sector which accounted for the biggest share in zone investments, at 34.38 percent in 2021.
“With the semiconductor and electronics as traditionally our number one sector, we remain committed to strongly support its growth and diversification and in attracting higher value and emerging technologies in the sector through aggressive investment promotions,” Guiapal said.
In the Strategic Investment Priorities Plan 2022, electrical and electronics are among the top priority industries for domestic and export markets.
PEZA bared the Philippines’ targeted investment promotion program of attracting strategic projects such as multilayer ceramic capacitors, hyperscale data centers, artificial intelligence- based solutions, mineral processing, liquefied natural gas, electric vehicle, and smart technologies
Pioneering activities have been identified in airport automation technology, medical marijuana, solar dish, hydrogen, waste-to-energy, Agri 4.0, flying cars, probe to Mars and oral vaccine for COVID treatment, collaborative robots.
Between 1995 up to 2021, PEZA registered 428 projects in semiconductor and electronics with P930 billion investments. Exports of these companies stood at $22.55 billion.
Companies in the semiconductor and electronics industries employed 396,645, and were led by Amkor Technology Philippines Inc., Canon Business Machines (Philippines) Inc., Dyson Electronics Pte Ltd-Philippine branch; Epson Precision (Philippines) Inc. among others.
Guiapal also highlighted the United States is the Philippines’ largest export market accounting for 16 percent.
Two-way trade between the two countries growing 23.4 percent year-on-year in 2021 to $23.3 billion, recovering from the 11.4 percent decline the previous year due to the lockdown that restricted mobility of people and hampered the shipment of goods in and out of the country.
The US was the Philippines’ fifth largest country supplier in 2021, with a 6.6 percent share of the country’s imports.
In stressing PEZA’s advantage as an investment destination cited observations of the Joint Foreign Chambers: “These investors selected the Philippines for its workforce. Incentives compensated for higher operating costs.”
According to the CES website, CES 2023 is the global stage for innovation. CES is the most influential tech event in the world – the proving ground for breakthrough technologies and global innovators.
