ENERGY and automation giant Schneider Electric believes this administration is on track to walk the Philippines into the fourth industrial revolution, as the firm views “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) program as the first step toward digitization.
In a recent interview with Filipino reporters in Singapore, Schneider Electric Executive Vice President Peter Herweck said the government made the right decision when it chose to prioritize infrastructure. Infrastructure, he pointed out, remains to be one of the major factors for attracting investments.
He was referring to the multitrillion-peso BBB centerpiece program of the Duterte administration, which seeks to lay down the most critical pieces of infrastructure—roads and highways, airports and seaports and transportation systems, power and telecommunications—for sustained growth in the next decade, with some projects coming onstream after President Duterte’s term ends in 2022.
Herweck, meanwhile, also hailed the administration’s financing policy of bankrolling the projects using public funds. He argued it is not sustainable to rely largely on the private sector to build all of the country’s infrastructure.
“First of all, government investments on infrastructure are very necessary. We have seen countries where everything is privately financed. This is also probably not the ideal setup. From that perspective, any investment that is done by the government is highly appreciated,” Herweck said.
However, should the government need help from corporations, Herweck noted it must not hesitate to do so, especially if it intends to improve the quality of the projects. “Having corporations also involved in non-state owned [projects] will probably make the investment more efficient, meaning, money that is deployed can actually achieve the best possible outcome.”
Herweck said efficient infrastructure will keep any country afloat in terms of investment inflows, particularly those still in the process of adapting to the digital economy. Under President Duterte, the government is keen on completing big-ticket public infrastructure under the BBB program. To do so, it plans to increase infrastructure-to-GDP ratio to 7.4 percent, which will amount to as much as P9 trillion by the end of Duterte’s term in 2022.
Growth prospects
Meanwhile, Schneider Electric Executive Vice President for International Operations Luc Remont expressed the multinational’s confidence in the country’s growth prospects. He said the Philippines remains to be one of the firm’s strongest areas both for market and production.
“The Philippines is big in two dimensions. It is big because it is an important development potential country. We are growing fast in the Philippines and, of course, in the way we develop our business, we look at the development potential of a market. Clearly, the Philippines, from my standpoint, [counts] among the countries where there is high speed of development and very high potential in development,” Remont explained.
“The second dimension is that the Philippines, for us, is also a very strong manufacturing country. We [are] a big manufacturing company. We [are] manufacturing many products in the region. We are in Cavite in the Philippines, one of our leading global factories, exporting globally some of our products,” he added.
Remont also noted Schneider Electric’s determination to make its Cavite plant one of the most advanced manufacturing sites in the world, equipped with the state-of-the-art smart technologies.
“We continue to invest in our Cavite infrastructure plant to transform this infrastructure plant into one of the most advanced smart manufacturing infrastructures. We deployed all the competences, all the digitization solutions that you can see here in Singapore so that we show that this plant can be one of the most advanced in the world across all sectors,” Remont said.
“Already, two plants from Schneider Electric have been recognized in other countries as being [two] of the 10 most advanced manufacturers globally across sectors. We would like Cavite to be one of them shortly,” the Schneider Electric official added.
The multinational recently concluded its annual regional summit in Singapore, where thousands of its customers and partners gathered to be introduced to the firm’s new innovations. The firm, known for its power and automation solutions, plans to assist the Philippines in its transition to the fourth industrial revolution.