DTI lists 250 foreign investment leads worth P450-B (Sabong News)

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has a list of over 250 foreign investment leads worth P450 billion that are expected to come in within 18 months or some before President Duterte steps down from office. DTI Secretary Ramon M. Lopez disclosed at the Philippine Economic Briefing, the last for the Duterte administration, that some of these investments are expected to enter “soon” or before June 30 this year when President Duterte steps down from office. “Usually, within 18 months,” said Lopez. The entry of many of these investment leads were hampered by travel restrictions due to the pandemic. “Some of them were just postponed investments due to Delta and Omicron surge and inability to visit the sites because of travel and quarantine restrictions,” said Lopez. Lopez said these new investments are expected to generate additional jobs and further ease the country’s unemployment rate. These investments are into electronics manufacturing services (EMS), integrated steel mills, telecom services and digital infrastructure, renewable energy, knowledge processing operation/business process outsourcing (KPO/BPO), Healthcare IT & BPM, Integrated Agriculture production/ processing, logistics, automotive and autoparts/EV/mineral processing/battery manufacturing, and garments and textile. Lopez said these investment leads involved “huge” amounts citing the huge capital needed for the integrated steel mills alone. He sees good timing for the entry of foreign investments this year and next year as long as there is no surge again in Covid cases. In the EMS sector, Lopez identified the potential projects from Foxconn, Minebea electronics, Brother (printers), Amphenol (electrical and electronics and fiber connectors), Positonics (wire harness for data centers/hyperscalers like Facebook and Google), 3 Taiwan companies for the manufacture of telecom equipment and optical connectors; one of the biggest equipment companies still under initial discussion. In the automotive sector, Lopez identified the investment leads to include expansions by Toyota Motors and Autoparts. Other related potential projects are ZAF BGM (nickel hydroxide processing plant and battery manufacturing), Ningbo Lygend (mineral processing and battering manufacturing), NWOW (Chinese e-bikes manufacturer), two Japan firms engaged in wiring harness manufacturing, and an EV infrastructure for the installation of charging stations. Lopez also identified two Chinese integrated steel mill projects – Panhua, which started investments talk even before the pandemic, – and Bauwo. For the telecom services and digital infrastructure, Lopez said that the list of investors include a Digital Hub Tech City (designed to host tech and IT companies in Pampanga), Elon Musk’s SpaceX Leos-based broadband internet, and 5 positive project leads in data centers and hyperscalers with power capacity requirement of between 50-180 megawatts. On renewable energy, the potential investments are from a US firm with solar project 150-180 MW, 3 Canadian solar power projects, and other projects to meet growing demand for RE and net zero emissions, and additional demand for sustainable data center operations. For the KPO/BPO, Lopez cited potential HCL expansion, US and Canadian animation projects, 2 US firms in BPO for IT and customer support, and a Canadian firm engaged in design and engineering. The healthcare IT and BPM space is also expected to generate more jobs with potential investments from a huge healthcare IT company expansion with 7,000 FTEs, and expansion of another health group with 20,000 current employment in the country. Other potential projects include that of InterVenn (a pioneer in a new AI-powered approach to predict, prevent, and observe disease progression in real time using glycoproteic research and development), Connext expansion), another KPO firm expansion, and an estimated $30 million outsourcing services as a result of PH participation to HIMSS22. The agriculture sector is expected to get a big boost with the planned integrated dairy production with estimated investments of $500 million for each project from Baladna-Qatar and LR Group-Israeli. Another firm Daesang, a tapioca starch producer with contract farming with cassava farmers/coop, is also investing in the country’s agriculture. On logistics, Lopez said that CN (cargo terminal), while PH-German and Canadian firm are investing in integrated logistics facilities. An American firm is looking at aerial logistics. For garments and textiles, Lopez said there are investors for non-woven textiles for personal protective equipment, and international sports and apparel brands for export production.