MAKATI CITY – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Board of Investments (BOI), the country’s primary industry development and lead investment promotion agency, in partnership with the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI), the Voice of Philippine Industry, will hold the Manufacturing Summit 2018 on 22-23 November at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

Now on its third year, the annual gathering of stakeholders from government, industry, and the academe serves as a venue to discuss the state of the manufacturing sector and consider ways forward to maximize opportunities and address challenges faced by the country’s industries.

In the first three quarters of 2018, manufacturing has grown by 5.7% on average and remains as one of the major drivers of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which grew at 6.3% in the same period. The Philippine economy has been sustaining this strong performance from 2010 to 2017 by growing at an annual average rate of 6.4%, with the manufacturing sector growing at an average quarterly growth rate of 7.6% in the same period.

This year, the Summit will focus on domestic and global concerns that impact Philippine manufacturing. On one hand, proposals to modernize the country’s investment incentives regime towards supporting the growth and development of local industries are pending in Congress, and reforms to improve the ease of doing business and national competitiveness are being implemented. On the other hand, the tensions between the Philippines’s major trade partners – the United States and China – and the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution present a changing global market that Philippine firms need to navigate both strategically and innovatively. The Summit will include sessions exploring these concerns and feature a variety of speakers and expert panelists from government, multilateral organizations, business, and universities from here and abroad.

The Manufacturing Summit is held as part of implementing the government’s Inclusive Innovation Industrial Strategy (i3S). The Summit proceedings will be live-streamed via the official DTI and BOI Facebook pages accessible at https://www.facebook.com/DTI.Philippines and https://www.facebook.com/boiphilippines, respectively. The program details are available at http://industry.gov.ph/manufacturing-summit-2018/. For further inquiries, you may email manufacturingsummit2018@dti.gov.ph.♦

Date of Release: 21 November 2018