TWO foreign firms are looking to invest in nickel processing in the Philippines, a Board of Investments (BOI) official said.
BOI Managing Head and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Undersecretary Ceferino S. Rodolfo revealed on Wednesday that a Chinese company and a “non-Chinese” one are already “actively seeking partners” in the Philippines. In fact, he added, these two firms already have representative offices in the country.
Rodolfo explained the steps these firms will go through as they register with the BOI.
“Maybe this year because if the [memorandum of understanding] MOU happens with partners, this can be done. It will be fast. Before the mid of this year. And then, their detailed studies will begin. I think before the end of this year they can register (with the BOI),” the BOI managing head said in Filipino on the sidelines of the event “Mapping the Investment Ecosystem,” organized by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).
The BOI official said the government expects to attract $5 billion worth of investments per company.
Rodolfo said the Chinese investors act fast, noting that “their track record is fast, like what they did in Indonesia.”
Moreover, he said, “They are also able to ramp up all the way until production in 24 months. But for us, this is very critical, we lay on the table, we won’t derogate environmental policy, environmental protection in labor protection. We won’t derogate that because that’s very important for us because whatever nickel we are able to process [are geared] toward batteries—batteries that will be used by global brands that have very, very strict ESG compliance policies. So that’s what is critical for us.”
He was referring to the environmental, social and governance investing parameters now used to encourage companies to act more responsibly.
No to raw ores exports
Early this year, Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual said the Philippines can be a “vital partner” for critical minerals such as nickel and copper, among others, not only as an exporter of raw ores but as a processor and producer of semi-finished and finished products.
“Mineral processing is crucial given our resources of green metals such as nickel, copper and cobalt,” Pascual said in his keynote speech at the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (Finex) Inaugural Meeting and Induction in January.
These minerals, noted Pascual, can be used for “downstream industries” such as electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing, hyperscale data centers, and renewable energy projects.
As Pascual woos countries to consider the Philippines as a processor of these critical minerals, he said the country has Indonesia as a model.
In an earlier televised interview, Glenn G. Peñaranda, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Assistant Secretary for Foreign Trade Service Corps, said Glencore, a Swiss multinational company involved in the processing of minerals in the Philippines, expressed interest to expand mining and processing operations in the Philippines.
Peñaranda echoed Pascual’s call to invite companies to process the Philippines’s minerals so that there will be value added, instead of just exporting it as raw material.
The Trade department said in an earlier statement that Glencore sees the Philippines as a potential partner to process nickel and copper resources responsibly and sustainability for use in electric vehicle batteries and energy storage units, among others.
Glencore is one of the largest and “globally diversified” natural resource companies in the world.