Russian love affair to bring vaccines, energy tie-ups in PH

Thanks to closer ties between Manila and Moscow, Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine may be manu­factured in the Philippines, the Department of Finance (DOF) said.

In a statement on Friday, the DOF said outgoing Russian Ambassador to the Philippines Igor Khovaev mentioned during his farewell courtesy call to Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III last Tuesday “the possibility of producing and distributing in the Philippines the vaccine developed by Russia.”

Early this month, Khovaev told a business forum that the bilateral deal, which Russia had proposed to the Philippine government involved joint clinical trials as well as immediate provisioning of vaccine supplies here after the third and final phases and regulatory approval.

The Philippines is supposedly being eyed to become the production hub for Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine in Southeast Asia.

Besides cooperation in vaccine production, Russia and the Philippines were also eyeing “possible agreement on energy cooperation to help boost the Philippines’ power generation capacity,” the DOF said.

Dominguez had said last year that Russian investors were keen on developing power infrastructure projects, including wind farms, in the Philippines following President Duter­te’s visit to Russia.

At that time, the Philippines and Russia also signed a memorandum of intent to explore the possible construction of nuclear power plants here.

The President recently sought consultations to possibly reopen the mothballed Bataan nuclear power plant.

Another area of cooperation discussed by Dominguez and Khovaev was in tax administration, including “a possible cooperation agreement between the Philippine Bureau of Customs and the Federal Customs Service of Russia,” the DOF said.

Dominguez also asked Russia to help the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) establish an efficient value-added tax (VAT) collection system.

In turn, Khovaev was quoted by the DOF as saying that “Russia has shared its VAT-collection technology with other countries and would assist the BIR in its effort to improve its system.”