By Tracy Cabrera
MANILA — More than 50 companies, including trillion-dollar tech titans, have expressed interest in investing at the first site tipped to be developed for the United States-led Pax Silica initiative at New Clark City in Pampanga.
This, according to Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) president and chief executive officer Joshua Bingcang, who is heading to Washington next week to work on how the proposed “economic security zone”—as the United States described it—would come to fruition.
Bingcang disclosed that a 4,000-acre, or 1,600-hectare, portion of Clark has been identified as the site of various high-tech industries and support businesses that would serve as a hub of the supply chain for artificial intelligence technology.
“The BCDA and the US Department of State are working on a framework agreement that would deal with the legal, commercial and other issues related to developing the industrial enclave. The framework agreement is expected to lead to a definitive agreement,” Bingcang stated in the hope that the proposal would be finalized “in the next two months.”
Before this, the BCDA had been in talks with the state department as counterpart to Pax Silica’s lead agency and “as the landlord” of the companies Washington and its partners would bring in to set up shop in Clark, which was once one of the largest American air force bases outside mainland USA.
“For the US Mission to ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), Pax Silica is a strategic initiative to build a secure, prosperous, and innovation-driven silicon supply chain,” Bingcang explained.
He cited that such a supply chain spans areas from critical minerals and energy inputs to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI infrastructure, and logistics.
He added that Pax Silica is seen as a boon to the local mining industry as the country is endowed with abundant reserves of copper, nickel, chromite and cobalt.
“These critical minerals could be processed in-country and used in the manufacture of higher-value technology products such as semiconductors at Clark,” BCDA’s top executive noted.
Currently, local mining companies merely export these minerals in the form of low-value unrefined ores—and the major destination of their shipments is China, a major US trade and military rival.
ia/xf
