CREATING a whole value chain for the nickel industry in the Philippines will increase the value of mineral exports by 10 times, a government economic manager said.

Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs Secretary Frederic Go said that instead of focusing on the exploration or exploitation of minerals, the Philippines should attract investments for downstream processing in the mining industry.

"We are now the largest exporter of raw nickel ore to the world, and we supposedly have the largest copper deposit mine here in the Philippines. And this can increase the value of our exports by perhaps 10 times," Go said during the Philippine Economic Briefing in Pasay City on Monday.

A report from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) showed that the country's metallic mineral production value sustained growth and rose by 4.79 percent in 2023.

In the latest report released by DENR's Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), the value of domestic metallic mineral production increased to P249.05 billion from the P237.66 billion logged in 2022 due to the outstanding performance of gold and nickel.

Currently, the country's nickel ore is being exported to China, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia, with China getting 98 percent of the total or 17.6 million dry metric tons in 2023.

Go also emphasized the need to complete the country's geo mapping of critical mineral resources, led by the DENR, which he said would also help attract investments into the mining sector.

Earlier this month, the government said it was planning to cut the processing time of mining permits from six years to one to three years via digitalization.

Moreover, Go said that he was optimistic on fostering the development of the mineral industry, which in turn would create an industry for electric vehicles.

"Processing electric vehicles in the Philippines would be our end goal, at least for today, that should be our end goal," he said.