MANILA, Philippines — Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory L. Domingo has finally declared the need to “recraft” the Arroyo-administration sponsored Motor Vehicle Development Program (MVDP), which he left hanging for almost two years already and leaving the industry in limbo as the trade chief seeks to look for “out of the box” solutions to let his vision of becoming a “car exporting country” fly.

“We need to recraft the MVDP. We are working on a roadmap with some industry players,” Domingo told reporters.

Domingo has maintained his push for the domestic-oriented industry to become an exporter of completely built up packs.

“The aspiration is to become a regional player, not only domestic. That has to be our ambition,” he stressed.

A new approach, a creative one, should characterize the new MVDP, which he said, should be formulated “sooner than later” as he noted of the Philippines being left behind by other neighboring countries in terms of automotive industry development.

Executive Order 877-A governing the new MVDP was issued by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in June 2010 after almost two years of grueling discussions with industry players and at least three industry studies. It was the among the last EOs that Arroyo signed before she stepped down from office.

EO 877-A, however, was left idle despite strong push from the industry players to implement it just so they have something to show to their foreign principals that the government has an automotive industry development program. Industry players said they cannot push for plans from their principals because there was no program to speak of.

Domingo was the least impressed of EO 877-A as he was looking for “out of the box” solutions to encourage local auto players to export saying it is the ultimate test of their competitiveness. So far, Ford Motor is the country’s lone exporter of completely built up packs.

“If we are unable to export and just serve the domestic market, then that means our industry is not competitive. So, our ambition for the auto industry is to be able to export complete vehicles,” he once said.

Domingo’s recent attention to the industry followed after the completion of another study by the University of Asia and the Pacific, which points out for the need for a generous package of incentives for different vehicle categories that the government should promote to foreign investors.

As this developed, the Philippine Automotive Competitiveness Council Inc. (PACCI) has urged the government to work with the auto and auto parts manufacturing sector to create a strategic expansion program that would enable the industry to achieve economies of scale and capture a significant share in the ASEAN region’s single market by 2015.

“Auto and parts manufacturing in the Philippines is both viable and sustainable. An ambitious but realistic strategy can take it to the next level,” said PACCI chairman Feliciano Torres.

“To achieve that, we must develop and sustain a public-private partnership (PPP) that creates reforms and public policies that support industry development and encourage investment,” Torres said.

Besides generating new jobs and providing substantial export revenues to support public spending, these policies, according to Torres, can eliminate uncertainty associated with regional supply chain disruptions.

He cited as an example the flooding in Thailand, a major auto production hub in the region. As a result of the flooding, parts manufacturers have been forced to slow or entirely suspend production, including parts for auto manufacturers in the Philippines.

“We need to act quickly because there is huge opportunity to grow the domestic vehicle and parts sectors and create jobs,” Torres said.

Torres cited the 2010 study by Dr. Cid Terosa of the School of Economics of University of Asia and the Pacific, which showed that a “one-peso increase in consumption or investment spending for motor vehicles will result in 3.67 pesos worth of additional output in the economy.”