Manila exporting more high-tech equipment

MANILA, Philippines - While the progress of some countries puts the Philippines in an awkward situation, one major source of pride for President Aquino is the fact that Manila exports more hi-tech equipment than its far more advanced neighbors.

He cited the case of the oil-rich Middle East, where the country “trades from them in basic energy supplies, petrochemical products (for instance), dairy products and the like.”

“We, in turn, export to them all of these, shall we say, more high-tech products, maybe the electronic outputs, from projectors to assemblies and automotive parts and so on and so forth. That is a major source of pride,” Aquino said.

The Chief Executive made the remarks in Friday’s 108th General Membership Meeting of the 17th World Electronics Forum (WEF) and Semiconductors Electronics Industries of the Philippines Inc. (SEIPI) that was attended by more than 200 chief executive officers in Cebu.

Aquino also took the opportunity to praise Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala for giving assurance that the government will soon be a rice exporter after the country had been importing rice for the last decade.

“He is telling us that we would probably be a net exporter by 2013, not of the basic varieties but of the higher-end varieties of rice. Just two years ago, we were conditioned to believe that we need to import at least 1.3 million tons of rice a year. And roughly about a little over two and a half years into our term, we will now be exporting,” he said.

He also mentioned his previous experience when he was “embarrassed” to hear from his Asian counterparts about their success stories in growing rice “primarily because a lot of their senior ministers and experts were educated in our country.”

“So, they learned how to plant rice from us, they imbibed the lessons really well; we go to them to import the rice which we can’t grow. And that was obviously a major source of embarrassment,” Aquino admitted.

Last year, the Philippine electronics industry accounted for more than $24 billion of exports or more than half of the total Philippine exports, and invested $2.4 billion in the country.

It is the biggest export industry in the Philippines having a direct employment of 530,000, which include engineers, technicians and operators. More than four million Filipinos benefit from this sector.