The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has adopted a cluster approach in promoting exports to sustain the sector’s growth.
DTI Secretary Alfredo Pascual in the Cabinet meeting yesterday with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., presented the reconfiguration of the exports sector into industry clusters as one of the agency’s priority initiatives.
“We will prioritize the three industry clusters that offer strategic advantages to the Philippines,” Pascual said in his presentation.
The three clusters are the industrial, manufacturing, and transport (IMT); technology, media and telecommunication (TMT) and health and life science (HLS)
The IMT covers aerospace (aircraft interiors; maintenance, repair, and overhaul) automotive (electric vehicles) , and semiconductors.
In TMT are digitalization services, business process outsourcing, artificial intelligence, analytics, cybersecurity, hyperscalers and creative industries.
For HLS, the sectors include biopharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and healthcare services.
Philippine merchandise exports closed 2021 with a 14.5 percent growth with value reaching $74.6 billion.
Pascual also cited the need to promote ore processing of green metals (nickel, cobalt, copper) before exporting them.
The Philippines is taking advantage of the increasing global demand for critical metals and catching up with other countries in the production and processing of such metals.
Electric battery for example is one of the fastest-growing sectors for nickel for which the Philippines is a dominant supplier of ore.
The Philippines is a relatively small producer of copper but can be offered as a strategic location for smelting and refining capacity especially in Leyte.
The Philippines meanwhile has the fourth largest reserves of cobalt, mined as a by-product of nickel and copper. EV batteries also use cobalt thus complementing the value chain needed for the production of EVs.
