BOI eyes Visayas as hub for AI, green industries

ILOILO CITY — The Board of Investments (BOI) is pushing to position the Visayas as an interconnected industrial hub for emerging industries, including artificial intelligence (AI), advanced manufacturing, renewable energy, and technology-enabled services.

Sandra Marie Recolizado, director of the BOI Investment Policy and Planning Service, said the region already has the resources, manufacturing capabilities, skilled workforce, digital infrastructure, and strategic locations needed to support higher-value industries.

The priority, she said, is to integrate these existing strengths across the Visayas and move beyond resource extraction and processing toward advanced manufacturing and technology-enabled industries.

“Doing so will enable the region to capture greater value, strength, and supply chains, attract quality investment, and generate more high skilled jobs,” she said on Nov. 6 at the Philippine Economic and Investment Briefing in Iloilo City.

“The Visayas can therefore be positioned as an interconnected host and growth base for future industries, providing locations where AI-aligned activities can manufacture processes, develop technologies and services, access renewable energy and resources, build supply chain linkages, and connect with domestic and international markets,” she said.

The proposed industrial transformation is part of the BOI’s 2026 Strategic Investment Priority Plan (SIPP), its roadmap for attracting and directing investments from 2026 to 2028.

The SIPP identifies priority industries and projects that may qualify for fiscal and nonfiscal incentives under the CREATE MORE framework.

CREATE MORE, or Republic Act 12066, amended the CREATE Act of 2021, the law that overhauled the country’s incentives system during the pandemic. It was signed into law in November 2024.

The law extended the maximum period for availing of tax incentives to 27 years from 17 years. It also raised the investment capital threshold for projects requiring approval by investment promotion agencies to PHP 15 billion from PHP 1 billion.

Approved by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on May 21 through Memorandum Order No. 47, the plan focuses on investments that promote economic transformation, innovation, job creation, competitiveness, resilience, and sustainable growth.

For the Visayas, Recolizado outlined five complementary industry capabilities that could drive the region’s industrial development.

These include advanced electronics and high-tech manufacturing, AI-enabled digital services and knowledge-based industries, copper processing and green metals, renewable energy and green industrialization, and smart agriculture and resource-based industries.

Recolizado noted that Cebu serves as the region’s primary electronics and advanced manufacturing hub, supported by its semiconductor, electronics, and engineering industries, as well as industrial estates and major transport gateways.

She also pointed out that Cebu and Iloilo anchor the Visayas’ digital economy through their information technology and business process management (IT-BPM), software, analytics, and talent ecosystems.

These are complemented by Bacolod’s growing IT-BPM sector and Bohol’s emerging digital services capabilities, she added.

For copper processing and downstream manufacturing, Recolizado identified Leyte as a strategic location, particularly with the Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corp. (PASAR) copper smelting and refining complex.

PASAR’s Leyte plant was placed under maintenance in 2025, with the company citing an ongoing evaluation of its operations and challenging market conditions. It is the country’s only copper smelting and refining firm, and its copper cathodes are used in electronics manufacturing.

She said the BOI is assisting efforts to reopen and resume PASAR’s operations, which could support the development of downstream copper products and green manufacturing industries.

Recolizado stressed that the facility, together with the Leyte Industrial Development Estate, the proposed Leyte Ecological Industrial Zone, and associated port infrastructure, could strengthen supply chains for electronics, energy, and other industries.

The Leyte zone has been on the BOI’s agenda since at least 2016. That year, Recolizado, then head of the agency’s Industries Service Division, said the proposed zone would mainly help companies that use copper, including copper wire rod casting producers.

Recolizado also identified Leyte, Negros Island, and Northern Samar as key areas for renewable energy development, citing their geothermal resources and biomass potential.

Negros, in particular, could leverage agricultural and agro-industrial waste for biomass energy, complementing its existing agriculture, food processing, and renewable energy industries.

For smart agriculture and resource-based industries, she identified Negros, Panay, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar as having strong agricultural, fisheries, and food processing foundations. She said these could be upgraded through precision agriculture, automation, digital traceability, and AI-enabled resource management.

She noted that improved traceability of agricultural products and production inputs would also help businesses meet export requirements.

“This demonstrates how the Visayas can operate as an integrated, industrial ecosystem, with each location contributing its unique strengths, to complementary roles across interconnected, regional, and national value chains,” Recolizado said.

She emphasized that the proposed industrial transformation would require collaboration among government, industry, investors, and international partners.