China-based PH car company to put up electric vehicle plant

A Filipino electric car manufacturer based in China agreed to put up a manufacturing facility in the Philippines to serve the growing local demand for e-vehicles.

Trade Undersecretary and Board of Investments managing director Ceferino Rodolfo said the Filipino firm is a major shareholder in an electric vehicle manufacturing company in China.

“This Filipino company is going to set up the infrastructure in the electric vehicle manufacturing space. Initially, they are importing the electric vehicles, but they will set up the infrastructure and more importantly the charging stations. Once they sold 20,000 units of e-vehicles, they are going to assemble electric vehicles in the Philippines,” Rodolfo said in a webinar organized by the Integrated Development Studies Institute.

Rodolfo said Filipino investors in China were taking a second look at the Philippines to take part in the projected rebound of the economy.

“Prior to this administration, there were more Filipinos investing in China than Chinese companies investing here. We are already seeing some Filipinos who have invested in China who are now coming back,” he said.

Chinese investments in the Philippines, he said, is in a transition phase, from having purely traditional state-owned corporations investing here to privately-held companies who are bullish to set-up multi-billion peso investments in critical industries.

He cited the P11-billion integrated steel project of Chinese firm PanHua Group Co. Ltd. in Mindanao and several other projects that were not yet reported.

Another company from Wuhan, China is also interested to join the telecommunications sector in the Philippines, he said.

“There’s a company from Wuhan that is going here. Its interest in the Philippines is not just to provide telecom services and telecom infra in the Philippines, but more to train Filipino workers so that the Philippines could be their hub for their infrastructure projects in the ASEAN and in Asia,” Rodolfo said.