By Darryl John Esguerra | Philippine News Agency
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. secured about P56.3 billion worth of potential investments from major Japanese firms during separate meetings on Thursday on the sidelines of his four-day state visit to Japan.
The investments span shipbuilding, advanced electronics manufacturing, semiconductor production, artificial intelligence or AI-driven technologies, and green maritime industries.
The projects are expected to generate about 10,300 additional direct and indirect jobs in the Philippines.
Marcos Jr. met with executives of Tsuneishi Group Corp. to discuss the expansion of the company’s shipbuilding facility in the Philippines.
Once completed, the expansion is expected to help position the Philippines as the world’s fourth-largest shipbuilding nation after China, Japan, and South Korea.
The President also met with executives of Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd., which presented its proposed expansion project involving the manufacture of advanced heat sink modules and thermal management products supporting global electronics and digital infrastructure applications.
Discussions included plans to expand operations at the Laguna Technopark to increase production of high-performance heat sinks used in cooling data center processing units, including CPUs and GPUs, amid rising global demand driven by generative AI technologies.
Marcos Jr. likewise met with executives of Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., where talks centered on a P4.3 billion expansion project in advanced electronics manufacturing.
The investment includes the construction of a new 4,706-square-meter facility in Cabuyao, Laguna by the company’s Philippine unit, First Sumiden Circuits, Inc. (FSCI), the country’s sole manufacturer of flexible printed circuits.
The expansion is expected to strengthen the Philippines’ participation in global supply chains for electric vehicles, AI-related electronics, and advanced telecommunications.
Meanwhile, executives of MinebeaMitsumi, Inc. presented the company’s ongoing and planned investments in the Philippines involving semiconductor back-end manufacturing, battery-related components for hyperscale data centers, Optical Image Stabilization technologies, and advanced precision manufacturing.
The projects are expected to support the expansion of smartphone camera actuator production, data center battery protection modules, and analog semiconductor operations in Cebu to address growing global demand linked to AI technologies.
