KUALA LUMPUR (July 30): The Philippines is joining the electric vehicle (EV) race with fiscal support of up to US$1 billion for domestic manufacturing, the state newswire agency reported.

Executive Order 121 signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr seeks to promote local manufacturing of EVs and their parts and components by providing “time-bound, targeted, performance-based, and transparent” fiscal incentives, the Philippine News Agency (PNA) reported on Thursday.

The programme is “hereby adopted to promote local manufacturing of EVs, including their parts and components, attract investments to expand domestic EV manufacturing operations, and develop the Philippines as a regional automotive manufacturing hub,” the executive order read.

Southeast Asia has become the EV battleground with Thailand and Indonesia dishing out generous incentives to attract foreign investments.

Malaysia, meanwhile, is tightening imports of fully-assembled vehicles to spur and protect development of its local EV industry while pushing towards 20% electric vehicle adoption by 2030.

The Philippines is setting strict conditions for the incentives that include fixed investment support equivalent to a percentage of total capital expenditures for tooling, equipment, research and development, engineering, startup expenses, and training costs.

To qualify, participants must invest at least five billion Philippine peso or produce at least 10,000 EV units, PNA reported. The incentives granted could be used to defray income tax, excise tax, value-added tax, and import duties due to the government.