The government said it expects investments in mineral processing to start coming in this year, with an approximate combined value of $6 billion in the next two to three years for the first three projects on nickel processing.
“We expect mineral processing investments to come in starting this year, in particular for HPAL (high pressure acid leach) technology that would produce the battery precursor materials,” Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo said.
He said the Trade Department’s efforts to attract more investments dovetails with the President’s goal of becoming the second biggest foreign direct investment (FDI) destination in Southeast Asia before the Marcos administration term ends.
While the Philippines continues to lag behind other ASEAN countries in terms of FDIs, it has, during the first three quarters of 2023,overtaken Malaysia and Thailand.
“These were the fruits of the foreign travels of the President and the cabinet members, logging in over $4 billion in FDIs. From 148 projects generated in 2023, 28 have been actualized. Construction of facilities have began which might take time depending on the nature of the project but the easiest will be the BPOs,” Rodolfo said.
He said the total FDIs the Philippines is getting is about 80 percent of what Indonesia is getting as FDI for minerals processing alone.
Within ASEAN, Singapore attracts the highest FDI, usually at arange of $80 billion to $100 billion. Indonesia gets about $20 to $25 billion while Vietnam generates as much as $15 billion in FDIs – way higher than the Philippines’ $4 billion in 2023.