The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said on Monday an incentive program for the electric vehicle industry has the potential to generate P120 billion in capital investment and create 680,000 new jobs over a 12-year period from 2028 to 2040.
DTI Secretary Cristina Roque, who approved on June 11 the Electric Vehicle Incentive Strategy (EVIS), said the program is awaiting endorsement by the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) for approval by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
EVIS has been scheduled for deliberation by the FIRB in July 2025, Roque said.
EVIS provides targeted fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to stimulate local production of EVs, batteries, motors, components, charging stations, and testing facilities. The incentive structure supports both capital investment and sustained production.
Apart from capital investments and new jobs, the incentive strategy is expected to generate as much as P11.4 trillion in total economic output, while boosting the government’s tax revenue by P400 billion.
EVIS will also save the country up to $30 billion in foreign exchange by reducing dependence on imported vehicles and parts during the 12-year timeline.
The DTI said EVIS will support the production targets set by the Comprehensive Roadmap for the Electric Vehicle Industry (CREVIS) from 2028 to 2040.
The roadmap aims to facilitate the local rollout of nine million electric vehicles, encompassing two- and three-wheelers, passenger cars, buses, and trucks, as well as nearly 400,000 charging stations.
A 50 percent EV fleet share by 2040 is also in the pipeline, initially comprising 2.45 million EVs, including cars, motorcycles, tricycles, buses, and public utility vehicles, by 2028.
Edmund Arraga, president of the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines (EVAP), in an email on Monday, said the group welcomes the approval by the DTI of EVIS as the incentives can encourage prospective investors who are just waiting in the wings.
While Arraga considers the EVIS a game changer, he said the targets will only be attainable if all government agencies are aligned with creating the demand for EVs.
“If not, the industry will find investing (in EV manufacturing) a high-risk direction and their investments may not push through,” Arraga said.
Most of the companies engaged in original equipment manufacture (OEM) in passengers cars have just recently started their EV manufacturing projects in Thailand and Indonesia and other Asean countries, “and it might take some time for them to expand to other countries.”
“EVAP will do its best to invite investments locally,” Arraga said.
EVAP chairman Ferdinand Raquelsantos said EVIS has long been awaited not just by the EV industry but by the local automotive parts-makers.
“We need to have a local assembly of vehicles. For the four-wheel segment, we see opportunities for public transport and logistics applications. Our local existing EV assemblers need the economy of scale to be able to be competitive,” Raquelsantos said.
He expressed, however, his hope that for the program to be meaningful for local parts suppliers, importation of units should be limited to the bare drive train or rolling chassis so that the rest of the body, including the cab and rear shell, can be locally produced. This means the localization of interior parts of the vehicle, he said.
Bob Palanca, managing director at BYD Cars Philippines, said EVIS is a step in the right direction, which signals that the Philippines is fully ready to embrace electric mobility. BYD Philippines is a distributor of the Chinese EV brand and a unit of AC Mobility, part of the Ayala Group.
“For BYD and ACMobility, it strengthens our resolve to deepen our local footprint, invest in partnerships, and contribute to job creation while making electrification more accessible to Filipinos,” Palanca said.
