Atin Ito First Filipino Community Newspaper in Ontario
The government is seeking to maximize the country’s abundant mineral resources to utilize its potential for more high-quality job opportunities, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said on Friday, May 10.
Speaking at a forum on the Philippine mining industry, NEDA Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan highlighted the underutilized but immense potential of the mining sector, despite its modest contribution to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) at 0.5 percent.
Balisacan pointed out that only 0.17 percent of the country’s mineral deposits have been developed for production, resulting in low employment in mining and quarrying, constituting only 0.45 percent of total employment.
Currently, most of the country’s mineral exports are raw or unprocessed, leading to fewer opportunities to beef up natural resources to produce the tools and technologies that sustainable and resilient economies demand.
“With abundant reserves of minerals vital for producing green technologies such as solar PVs (photovoltaic cells), wind turbines, and electric vehicle batteries, the Philippines is strategically positioned to tap into global markets for these technologies and maximize the value derived from its mineral products,” he said.
The NEDA chief cited the development of downstream metallic and non-metallic mineral processing to bolster the expansion of domestic manufacturing industries focused on green technologies.
The government is also exploring opportunities to increase value addition in the mineral industry while ensuring macroeconomic stability and accelerating climate action, as per the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023-2028.
However, significant challenges hinder the growth of the mineral industry, such as limited availability of mineral processing technology, substantial capital requirements, high operating costs largely driven by high electricity expenses, and an unstable policy environment surrounding mining.
Balisacan, in turn, said that the government is helping local industries for research and development and commercialization of green technologies and products as well as implementing reforms to bring down electricity and logistics costs and create an enabling policy environment to encourage private sector investments in green industries.
He also reiterated that the government is actively collaborating with the government agencies to implement a suitable tax regime for extractive industries, particularly mining, and to institutionalize the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative principles.
“We expect the promising mining industry to support our manufacturing, infrastructure, and construction sectors, with spillovers to the broader economy through more and higher-quality jobs for all Filipinos even as we work toward our climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement,” the NEDA chief stated.
Based on the PSA data, mining in Region IV-B, comprising the provinces of Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, and Palawan, contributed 12.4 percent to the total GDP. Similarly, in Region XIII, mining’s contribution to GDP reached 12.3 percent.
In addition, over P35 billion in revenues were collected from the mining sector, according to the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative as chaired by the Department of Finance.
— Xander Dave Ceballos
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