Construction industry targets P130 billion project value by 2030

CEBU, Philippines — The construction industry targets to generate as much as P130 billion worth of project value from 2020 to 2030.

The sector is seen to be one of the country’s major economic recovery stimulators while facing challenges particularly with the ongoing threat of the pandemic.

During an online forum hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) —Export Marketing Bureau (EMB) and the Philippine Trade and Investment Center in Dubai, DCCD Engineering Chairman and chief executive officer Engr. Michael Reyes said that the construction industry has a promising growth forecast as it could generate as much as P130-trillion worth of project value from 2020 to 2030 through expansion of investments, participation in the global market and a well-plotted construction roadmap for the stakeholders’ discussion.

Reyes said that collaborating with foreign industry partners through an efficient outsourcing of Philippine talents and workforce can also improve its alliance with other countries especially in dealing with various construction projects abroad.

“As of 2018, there was just around 2.3T construction value. Without the road map, we will just be attaining up to 4.3T construction value by 2030,” shared Reyes during the Philippine Business Forum.

“The Philippine construction industry is embarking on improving the work force of the construction industry. If I’m not mistaken, in 2016, we were at 3.9 percent of the work force and we are by 2020 7.1 and you can see a very big increase as far as highly skilled workforce. The professionals increased a bit and unskilled decreased a bit. For us to achieve this construction industry road map, we need to really do a lot of capacity building and improve the talents and the technical know-how of our workforce,” he explained.

In the same online forum, Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Undersecretary Dr. Maria Catalina Cabral said that the infrastructure and construction industry is one of the greatest economic stimulus, because in the short term, it generates employment and income, directly rescuing the unemployment problem of the country and accelerating the circulation of income, which help in hurdling the Philippines’ unemployment and other economic recession problems.

“The construction industry can generate at least 4,000 employees for every one billion pesos worth of spending because of the many industries attached to it,” said Cabral.

Cabral also champions other sectors of the government through collaboration — the tourism sector by creating bypasses leading to tourism destinations; the agriculture sector through the construction of farm-to-mill roads; and the Department of Education by providing facilities that benefit public schools nationwide.