Manufacturing roadmap to be launched in July

The Philippines will launch next month the long-awaited Manufacturing Industry Roadmap that will help local industries boost their competitiveness ahead of Asean economic integration in 2015.

Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said in a text message that the Philippine Institute For Development Studies (PIDS) would launch and release the roadmap.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will be the lead agency but will be coordinating with other agencies in implementing the roadmap. PIDS is also set to recommend the creation of industry councils.

A draft version of the manufacturing industry roadmap showed that the first phase will be implemented from 2014 to 2017 and will focus on strengthening so-called emerging products, maintaining “classics” and rebuilding the existing capacity of industries.

Agriculture-related products, machinery, glass and some chemical products are among the “emerging champions” identified by the PIDS.

The so-called classics, where the Philippines has had high comparative advantage since the 1990s, are forest materials, raw materials, cereals, labor and capital-intensive garments products, machinery, and certain chemical products.

Phase 2 (2018-2021) involves attracting investments to high value-added activities and linking and integrating industries within the economy. PIDS is recommending aggressive marketing and promotion to lure investment, especially those bringing in new technology.

“This is important not only to enable our industries to take advantage of the opportunities and face the challenges that would arise from Asean Economic Community 2015 but as well as with the other FTAs (free trade agreements) that the Philippines has signed.” “We are also recommending the formulation of industry councils,” PIDS vice president Rafaelita Aldada said in a presentation for Philexport.

“In the long run in 2020-2025, (our goal is) to see globally competitive manufacturing industry with strong forward and backward linkages,” she said.

Meanwhile, the formulation of the Comprehensive Industry Roadmap is still ongoing.

The PIDS was tapped by the DTI-Board of Investments to formulate the industry roadmap that would integrate the sectoral roadmaps. So far, the Institute received and reviewed 23 sectoral roadmaps.

The Asean market is believed to have a consumer base of 600 million people. Integration not only means duty-free importation from any member-country, it also means easier access to production inputs like materials and labor. However, local industries must improve efficiency and improve from production up to packaging and marketing in order to thrive amid tougher competition with foreign products and services.