Aquino hails contributions of electronics industry to economy

LAPU-LAPU CITY—President Benigno Aquino on Friday lauded the semiconductor and electronics industry for its contribution to the Philippine economy despite the decline in the global demand for its products.

“Your industry, for the past couple of years, was left reeling from the effects of the disaster that hit Japan, on top of a global economic slowdown that spanned years,” Aquino told the participants of the World Electronics Forum and the Semiconductor and Electronic Industries in the Philippines Inc. (Seipi) general membership meeting held at Shangri-La”s Mactan Island Resort and Spa in this city.

Over 200 leaders of the electronics industry from the Philippines and other countries attended the four-day 17th World Electronics Forum.

According to the President, the country’s economy is “inextricably tied” to the semiconductor and electronics industry.

He recalled that the industry’s exports had accounted for an average of 65 percent of the country’s total export for about a decade, but its share had dropped to 50 percent in 2011.

“This contributed to the decline in total merchandise exports, which pulled down the 2011 GDP (gross domestic product) growth rate by an estimated 2.2 percentage points,” Aquino said.

Despite the decline, the industry’s direct employment grew by 6 percent, from 500,000 in 2010 to 530,000 in 2011, the President said, calling it an encouraging sign.

Aquino also credited the industry for its innovation, understanding and vision that forged the industry’s resilience.

On the other hand, industry leaders projected bright prospects for the sector.

In his briefing for the President, Seipi chairman Bing Viera said the comparative figures for investment in the first two months of the year showed an improvement.

According to Viera, the industry recorded $4.16 billion in investments inn January and February 2011. But during the same period in 2012, the investments reached $4.49 billion, an increase of about seven percent. The bulk of these investments came from the semiconductor subsector, he added.

Viera said they expected the industry to post a major recovery in the next two to three months.

The Seipi had earlier disclosed that it expected electronics exports to increase from 10 to 15 percent this year. Last year, the industry’s exports dropped by 20 percent.

Mr. Aquino maintained that the industry’s “growth and resilience has been nothing but exceptional,” despite the global conditions in the past couple of years and the less-than-ideal political climate over the past decade or so, which has, only now, begun to change.

“You have been able to thrive, and not merely survive, in the Philippines despite the limitations presented by the business environment, which cannot be separated from the political milieu,” he said.

The President told the forum he expected the industry to achieve greater heights as it “builds on the momentum that the country is experiencing right now” and promised that his administration would be supportive of the industry.

“My government is determined to meet any challenge that might arise in your industry with equal resilience and equal fervor. You can continue to count on my administration’s active support for the semiconductor and electronics industries,” Aquino said.

The Philippines provides about 10 percent of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing services, including mobile phone chips and microprocessors.

Aside from these products, the Philippines also became the site for the manufacture of other products such as anti-lock brake system, CD-ROM drives, digital signal processing units, printed circuit boards and disk drives.