MANILA, Philippines—The Semiconductor and Electronics Industries of the Philippines Inc. (Seipi) has identified manufacturing services and renewable energy as two of the areas that the country should focus on in terms of technological development.

In its draft technology roadmap, which would be presented to the government once completed, Seipi Vice Chair Arthur Young said these were two of the sectors that had the most potential to drive future growth for the Philippines, as determined during a recent meeting of the group.

During that meeting, he related that an expert from global consortium International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (Inemi) conducted a lecture on where technology would be going in the coming years and the direction where multinational firms were heading in terms of product and service developments.

“We want to determine where the Philippines is now in the global technology roadmap. There are so many areas where we can be, but we obviously can’t be all things to everyone. We need to focus on some technologies and strengthen these so we could gain investments in these areas,” he told the Inquirer.

Two of the most promising technologies, he said, were manufacturing services, where the country was now a global player, and renewable energy, on which countries the world over were now focusing.

Right now, he said the country already had a 10-percent share of the global manufacturing services market via its electronics and semiconductor exports.

“Yes, we are already a player here, but we want to know where technology is now so we can further strengthen our capabilities and eventually make the Philippines a big hub player on the manufacturing side. We’ll put a lot of focus on this,” he said.

Renewable energy, on the other hand, had become a key part of the technology supply chain, he said, making it another area of potential technology focus for the Philippines.

This particular sector also had the potential for immense social and developmental impact on the country, she said.

“In this sector, we want to know how we can make the biggest impact in terms of development. We can be in solar, wind, wave – there a lot of possibilities. But we also have to build a market here. It’s important that we do that, too,” he said.

Developing solar technologies, for example, would enable the country to become a key player in the renewable energy space globally, he said. At the same time, this could possibly make the use of solar power more mainstream by making the technology cheaper to acquire and maintain.

“We can throw a lot of resources into solar technologies: develop more efficient solar panels, inverters and wafers so we can grow the industry and also eventually provide cheaper electricity. But this one should be a really long-term commitment because we need years of research and development to achieve this,” he said.

Seipi president Ernesto Santiago said the roadmap should be completed by October.

Around 300 Seipi members met in Baguio City recently to formulate the roadmap of the industry and the organization meant to make the country more competitive in this field.

Apart from solar power, the packaging industry along with at least 18 other sectors, were studied for feasibility.

“We’re reassessing our future. The technology roadmap will be presented to the government and will determine which technologies and technology evolutions we should focus on. We’re hoping to come out with the specific roadmap by October,” Santiago said.

The reassessment is also in response to global trends where the electronics market is expected to soften toward the end of the third quarter, which prompted Seipi to consider a downward adjustment of its growth target for the year.