MANILA – Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo said two Chinese companies are eyeing to put up manufacturing facility for offshore wind equipment in the country, with investments of around USD2 billion each.
Rodolfo said in an event in Makati City Tuesday that these firms target to supply the requirement of the upcoming offshore wind projects in the country, as well as the demand from the entire region.
“There are already projects that are coming to the Philippines for the offshore wind towers, turbines and windmill blades. These are very important because if you look at renewable energy projects globally, everyone would like to go into renewable energy,” he said.
Early this month, the Department of Energy said it awarded 79 offshore wind service contracts with total potential capacity of 61.93 gigawatts.
“(These are) big investments. Hopefully, we can close this year,” Rodolfo, who is also the Managing Head of the Board of Investments (BOI), told reporters on the sidelines of the event.
“I think they have targeted already or closing in on one particular location where they might be close to each other,” he added.
Rodolfo said the opportunities in the Philippines for renewable energy is not limited to project service part, but also making the country a hub for equipment and components needed for renewable energy.
“They want it here because number one, the local demand and then the opportunity to make us their hub for the region and also the other market like the US and the EU (European Union). Number two is our geographic setup. These are very large equipment... It’s impossible that you will locate them inland,” he said.
"It’s in the area where you have the port and it’s easy to transfer from your manufacturing base to a project area, and we are perfectly suited because there are areas in the Philippines that have that, plus there (are) areas in the Philippines that have human resource talent for this type of activities, like the shipbuilding areas, ports," he added.
2023 targets
With this kind of big-ticket projects, the BOI executive said this would usher the investment promotion agency to reach its target this year.
Initially, the BOI targets to hit PHP1 trillion investment approvals for 2023.
DTI Secretary and BOI Chairman Alfredo Pascual is more optimistic, eyeing to register PHP1.5 trillion projects this year.
From January to September this year, the BOI Board has approved around PHP740 billion worth of projects. (PNA)
