The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has affirmed its support for the implementation of the Asean Industrial Projects (AIP) in the Philippines, but emphasized that leading companies should spearhead the initiative.
On May 18, during the Asean Economic Ministers’ (AEM) face-to-face special meeting, the economic ministers revisited the implementation of AIP from the early days of the regional grouping.
The AIP was part of Asean’s regional industrialization efforts that encompassed resource-pooling, market-sharing, networking, and complementation.
These industrial development projects primarily aimed to promote sharing of the region’s vast resources and capitalize on each AMS’s comparative advantage in order to achieve economic growth and development at both the national and regional levels.
Meanwhile, it is worthy to note that although the DTI supports the said implementation, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez emphasized that the leading companies in the private sector should be at the forefront of this. However, Lopez stressed that the government will be on top of providing the right business environment.
“We support revisiting this program but the private sector, particularly the leading companies in major sector should drive this. It should follow the principle of developing an Asean value-chain so that various stages of production can be distributed to several member-states to spread the benefits of industry development,” said Lopez.
“We may consider tapping the Asean Business Advisory Council to look into possible projects in critical sectors such as food, health infrastructure, climate sustainability, and clean energy. Then let us approach this along the lines of public-private sector partnership, with the government responsible for providing the right business environment,” he added.
The trade chief emphasized that recent legislative reforms of the Philippines, namely, the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE Act), and amendments to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act (RTLA), Foreign Investments Act (FIA) and Public Service Act (PSA) are expected to put the Philippines at the forefront of invests’ interest for AIPs.
The economic ministers acknowledged that there would a need to take concrete steps on the outcomes of the discussions at the Special Meeting on May 18, and the next steps should be taken with haste as all these initiatives will support post-pandemic recovery efforts across the Asean community.
The ministers tasked senior officials to continue the work inter-sessionally, in preparation for the 54th Asean Economic Ministers Meeting and Related Meetings to be hosted in September 2022 by this year’s Chair, Cambodia.