By Justine Irish D. Tabile, Reporter
THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said domestic producers must be given preference in government procurement to support their development.
“We need to source products that are available locally, as long as they meet the price, quality, and standards,” Trade Undersecretary Rafaelita M. Aldaba said on Monday on the sidelines of the Tatak Pinoy Act Forum.
“The biggest opportunity for our producers is if the market for their products is the government,” she added.
She said that a lot of products can be locally sourced, with preferential procurement within the scope of the Tatak Pinoy Act.
“Right now, they are using this program called domestic bidder preference… we know that it is still hard to compete with imported products because they have lower prices due to their scale,” she added.
She said that if the government sources locally, the government spending will stimulate more economic activity.
“It will have a lot of spillover effects, and at the same time, the government will also be able to help our industries,” she added.
Aside from the Tatak Pinoy Act, Ms. Aldaba said that the DTI is also awaiting the amendment of the Government Procurement Reform Act, which will make it easier for small and medium enterprises to participate in government bids.
The amendments “will remove the difficult regulations that (deter) local companies, especially small ones,” she added.
In terms of priority products, Ms. Aldaba said that the target is to come up with a draft of the Tatak Pinoy Strategy by December.
“This will be a multi-year strategy … we will identify the products that we will target in terms of contribution to gross domestic product and employment as well as the sectors that we will prioritize,” she said.
According to Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual, one of the top priorities of the Tatak Pinoy Act is the semiconductor and electronics industry.
In particular, he said that the goal is to elevate the industry’s position in the global value chain by refocusing on higher-value activities such as integrated circuit design, research and development (R&D), and electronics manufacturing services.
“To achieve this goal, we must invest in R&D infrastructure, forge partnerships with major foundries globally, cultivate PhD-level competencies, and optimize power and logistics infrastructure,” Mr. Pascual said.
“Hence, one of our major initiatives under Tatak Pinoy is to conduct a feasibility study on establishing a lab-scale wafer fabrication facility in the Philippines,” he added.
He said that the facility will support R&D, prototyping, intellectual property development, and experimentation with new materials and manufacturing processes.
Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Foundation, Inc. President Danilo C. Lachica said that there is a long-term need for a wafer fab but noted its low-priority status under the US Chips Act.
“You can’t really blame them since the low-hanging fruit is expanding the assembly, testing, and packaging, and it’s good for us. It’s also good when they say they’ll triple output,” he said.
“It’s also a natural consequence of building up the wafer fab capacity in the US, because if you produce the wafers, you’re going to have to send those wafers elsewhere to do the assembly test and packaging; hence, the Philippines will benefit directly from that,” he added.
However, he said that the Philippines will eventually need to consider having its own wafer fab capacity.
“I think that there’s a real China threat to Taiwan, and Taiwan is the biggest source of our semiconductor wafers, which are used for our electronics industry,” he said.
“When that impacts the supply of wafers, it’s going to be a major detriment to our industry,” he added.
He added that a wafer fab will increase the complexity of the electronic products that the country exports.
“We import about $20 billion to $30 billion worth of parts; if we can localize most of that, possibly with the help of Tatak Pinoy, that’s going to be a big boost to the economy,” he said.
