THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is in the thick of preparations to revitalize the country’s manufacturing sector and embrace Industry 4.0, as it moves forward in implementing the Inclusive Innovation Industrial Strategy.
Speaking at the recently held Manufacturing Summit 2019 in Manila, DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez said while the country’s manufacturing sector exhibited a slowdown in growth in the recent quarters of this year due mostly to the US-China trade war, overall global slowdown in growth and rising global protectionism, the Philippine manufacturing sector has been growing at a respectable rate, with manufacturing share-to-gross domestic product remaining almost unchanged for the past few years.
“Despite (the slowdown), we are enjoying fast growth due to domestic demand,” Lopez said.
“The bright spot is, our investments continue to grow,” Lopez noting that the significant increases in approved manufacturing investments were expected to expand production capacities, address supply chains gaps and improve global value chain participation.
Data showed that investment promotion agencies’ approved investments in 2016 to 2018 were at P730 billion, up 57.3 percent from 2013 to 2015.
Moreover, growth in Board of Investments–approved manufacturing investments increased eight-fold—from 82 percent in 2016, to 95 percent in 2017 and 327 percent in 2018.
To revitalize the Philippine manufacturing towards a sustainable and inclusive industrial development, Lopez said the sector will address growth constraints and will leverage on government support.
These include human resource development to upskill workers and increase productivity, addressing raw materials shortage through small value chain interventions, incentivizing energy technologies to help bring down power cost, cutting down red tape and standardizing shipping cost through logistics interventions and countering unfair trade practices including smuggling and substandard and counterfeit goods through mandatory product certification.
“We have to increase domestic capacity to support the growing demand of our economy. We should be prepared,” Lopez said.
“There is a need to revitalize the manufacturing sector. This is the sector that can create more jobs, better income for our Filipinos,”he added. (PR)