THE Philippines is working with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in a project to further develop the semiconductor industry in Asia-Pacific (APAC), Trade Secretary Cristina Roque said at the Asean Business Environment Forum (ABEF) in Manila last week.
The project, called the Advance Sustainable Clean Energy Network for Development (Ascend), is an ADB initiative that would accelerate clean energy transition by securing supply chains for critical minerals and clean energy technologies across the APAC region.
It comes with a $280-million loan, “which builds on previous support that promoted Industry 4.0 developments and opportunities identified for technology-driven startups,” ADB said in a statement.
Industry 4.0 seeks to transform the country‘s labor market and high-growth sectors through digital skills development and innovation centers. These aim to mitigate job displacement from automation while capturing productivity gains in the country’s most competitive industries.
Ascend would boost the capacity of select state universities to translate research and development outputs into commercial solutions, ADB said.
It will support facility upgrades and training programs that match industry requirements, improving collaboration between educational institutions and industry through grants for applied research, startup incubation, and enterprise development.
The loan amount can still change, ADB noted.
The project is vital to the Asean Semiconductor Roadmap, which will create strategic investment pathways and promote research and development in the region, Roque said, noting it is part of the priority economic deliverables in the Philippines‘ chairship of the 2026 Asean Summit.
The roadmap wants to position each Asean member-country to participate effectively in the semiconductor supply chain, strengthen value chain integration and regional complementarities in design, fabrication, testing, and packaging, and advance workforce development.
The value chain consists of Singapore, which leads in chip design and research; Malaysia anchoring advanced backend processing; Vietnam scaling mass electronics assembly; and the Philippines specializing in assembly, test, and packaging, ensuring chips meet global quality and reliability standards before final integration.
The semiconductor industry is one of Asean’s most strategically significant sectors, supporting innovation in automotive systems, telecommunications infrastructure, health care technology, and consumer electronics.
Since 2020, it has drawn about $60.8 billion in foreign direct investment.
Asean — composed of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam — is the world’s fifth largest economy with a combined gross domestic product of $3.9 trillion and inward foreign direct investment of $170 billion in 2025.
