A strategy for the promotion of Philippine engineering and technological services abroad

Introduction

One of the areas of interests of the Engineering Sciences and Technology Division of the National Academy of Science and Technology (ESTD-NAST) is the promotion of engineering and technological services by Filipino professionals in other countries.

In almost every country in the world, one will find Filipino engineers and technologists, many in very responsible positions. However, almost all of them are working for companies of other countries. Our professionals are trained at great expense in the Philippines, only for other countries to benefit from them.

The ESTD-NAST has noted the limited success of Filipino consultants in significant projects abroad, including projects described in my paper entitled “Construction of Vietnam Bridge Supervised by Filipino Consultants” in Star Science last June 13. This demonstrates that Filipino consultants can be competitive internationally. In that paper I remarked that endeavours like this deserve government support. One can only dream how much more could be achieved.

It is the objective of the ESTD-NAST to help Filipino consultants secure projects abroad, and not just to promote recruitment of individual Filipinos to work for foreign companies. The Committee on Engineering Services of the ESTD-NAST formulated a strategy to achieve this objective.

The strategy

The ESTD-NAST took note of two strategies used in the past, which while providing benefits, have their drawbacks:

The first, commonly called outsourcing, is to provide services to be done in the Philippines for projects abroad, mostly in developed countries.  Examples are call centers, medical transcription, data encoding, etc. The Filipino firm acts as subcontractor of a foreign company which is the one with the contract for the services. For engineering and technological services, opportunities are limited because of the current economic situation in developed countries.

Another strategy is for Filipino consultants to associate with foreign consultants for projects abroad, where the foreign consultant is the principal. While profitable in the short run, this usually results in the Filipino consultant losing its best people to the foreign consultant.

For both strategies, the Filipino consultant is at the mercy of the foreign consultant and cannot take credit for the project.

The strategy favored by the ESTD-NAST is for Filipino consultants to secure projects directly in foreign countries. The target clients are national or local governments and the target projects are their foreign or locally funded infrastructure projects open to international consultants. The ESTD-NAST feels Filipino consultants will be competitive.

The following are the components of the strategy:

Step 1:  Commercial attachés stationed in Philippine embassies and consulates monitor and identify project opportunities through newspaper advertisements, Internet announcements (websites) and liaison with local government agencies.

Step 2: The commercial attaché informs Filipino consultants of project opportunities. The umbrella organization recognized by the government to represent Filipino consultants is the Confederation of Filipino Consulting Organizations (COFILCO).

Step 3: COFILCO informs its members of the project opportunities. If there is no interest, the process stops. If there are interested Filipino consultants, the procurement process begins.

Step 4: The embassy/consulate assists interested Filipino consultants in the procurement process.  Some examples of how the embassy/consulate can assist are the following:

• Securing prequalification requirements and Expression of Interest (EOI) forms and transmitting to interested Filipino consultant;

• Identification of and preliminary discussions with local consulting firms as possible tie-up;

• Submission of prequalification requirements and EOI forms;

• If a Filipino consultant is shortlisted, preparation of the technical and financial proposals;

• If a Filipino consultant is selected, negotiations with the implementing agency;

• If negotiations are successful, perfection of the consultancy contract; and

• During this stage, the Filipino consultant may not have an office in that country yet, and the embassy/consulate can assist by providing communication assistance, provision of temporary office space and conference/meeting facilities.

Step 5: The embassy/consulate assists the Filipino consultant during the rendering of the services. Some examples of how the embassy/consulate can assist are the following:

• Assistance in visa requirements;

• Assistance in remittance of foreign currency;

• Assistance in tax requirements/payments;

• Assistance in securing permits; and

• Assistance in communications.

The strategy does not require any funding from the Philippine government. The initiative and onus rest squarely with the private sector. The assistance to be provided by government falls within the services a Filipino could expect from his/her embassy/consulate.

An essential component of the strategy is the partnership between the government and the private sector. On the part of government, the appropriate agencies are the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). For the private sector, the appropriate body is the Confederation of Filipino Consulting Organizations (COFILCO), the umbrella association of Filipino consulting firms.

Conclusion

In 2009, I organized a consultation meeting sponsored by the ESTD-NAST on the Promotion of Engineering and Technological Services Abroad, attended by representatives from the DTI, DFA and COFILCO. In that meeting, the strategy was presented. There was some discussion and there appeared to be a consensus that the strategy was viable. It was also made clear that the initial moves are with government. Since that time however, there has been no action from either DTI or DFA.

The ESTD-NAST intends to organize another meeting, with the objective of organizing a Technical Working Group composed of representatives of ESTD-NAST, DTI, DFA and COFILCO to fine-tune, flesh out and implement the strategy.

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Dr. Angel L. Lazaro III is a member-academician of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) Philippines. He holds a BS Civil Engineering degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and an MA, MS Engineering and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University. A professor and former dean of the College of Engineering at De La Salle University and former MWSS administrator, Lazaro is presently the managing partner of Angel Lazaro and Associates International (ALAI), Consulting Engineers. Contact ALL III at [email protected].