BoI positioning PHL as electric vehicle center

THE Board of Investments (BoI) said the ASEAN Electric and Hybrid Vehicles Summit, which the Philippines will host in June, will help promote these types of vehicles and position the country as a major manufacturer in the category.

“We hope that the event will help spread the electric and hybrid vehicles initiative in the ASEAN region and eventually, the world with the Philippines as the focal point,” BoI Executive Director for Industry Development Services Corazon Halili-Dichosa said in a statement.

The EV Summit will be part of the ASEAN National Organizing Committees series of events for 2017 and the Philippines, as chair of the ASEAN member countries, will serve as the event’s host.

“It is the perfect opportunity for us in the ASEAN to unite and promote EV applications so that together, we can make a better and cleaner world for the next generation,” said Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines ( EVAP) Vice- President Edmund Araga.

He added that representatives from the Philippines have been travelling around the ASEAN region to invite ASEAN counterparts to the summit “for them to exhibit their latest products and technologies and to share their best practices with us.”

EVAP earlier announced that the country has the potential to become a manufacturing hub of electric vehicles in the ASEAN.

EVAP is also looking to replace 350,000 diesel- fueled jeepneys and 1.2 million gasfueled tricycles once the country shifts toward an electric public transport system.

“And with a large production volume, we can then have the economies of scale to become the manufacturing hub for electric vehicle and parts in the ASEAN region. This we hope will then open up the ASEAN region as the staging point for subsequently exporting to the other parts of the globe,” EVAP President Rommel T. Juan said in a statement.

“The business opportunities lie in the need to modernize the aging and ailing mass transport system and electric jeepneys and electric tricycles are the more viable options,” said Mr. Juan.

The EV Summit will be held on June 29-30, 2017 at the World Trade Center in Pasay City and is being jointly organized by BoI, EVAP and Manila Electric Company (Meralco). —