Economic diplomacy

BABE'S EYE VIEW

- AMBASSADOR B. ROMUALDEZ

Following the instructions of President Marcos, our team at the Philippine embassy in Washington, D.C. is going full blast with our economic diplomacy efforts as we continue our engagements with U.S. legislators and government officials. In fact, we discussed this extensively during our strategic planning session with Philippine consuls general all across the United States, including Guam, on how we will be moving forward relative to the incoming Trump administration.

We see a number of opportunities in exploring potential joint ventures in various sectors between U.S. and Philippine investors. A very good example of a successful joint venture is Amber Kinetics, a global leader in the design and manufacture of long-duration flywheel energy storage systems.

I recently visited their facility in Union City, California and was given a briefing on the company's cutting-edge technology that provides safe, sustainable, and reliable energy storage solutions for the modern grid.

Former country chairman of Shell in the Philippines, Edgar Chua, is the CEO of Amber Kinetics. During a tour of the facility, I spoke with chief technology officer and co-founder Dr. Seth Sanders, who said they are expanding operations in the Philippines where their innovation hub is located. Their facility in Batangas manufactures, assembles, and tests flywheels, while their demo site is located at the De La Salle University in Laguna.