UNITED States Department of State Assistant Secretary Ramin Toloui said that they are targeting specific funding allocations for the immediate production of "Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors" or CHIPS Act for the Philippines.

He said that presently, there is an ongoing being conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

This is done by Toloui during his two-day visit in Manila.

This is his fourth stop in his official trip to Asia, with an aim to deepen US economic ties with Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam.

Toloui had declared that the OECD study will greatly assist them in channeling allocations to target priority areas under the CHIPS Act.

It will be recalled that Philippines is among the countries that was chosen by the US as partners under the CHIPS and Science Act.

This is when the US government has earmarked USD500 million for the International Technology, Security, and Innovation (ITSI) Fund to be spent over the next five years in the partner countries.

CHIPS is aimed to “diversify” the US’ semiconductor supply chain, via conducting agreements partner countries to make it conducive for US companies to invest in these nations.

“Before the study is made public, we will be able to use the results of the interim report to actually make some funding decisions, and those should be available in the next couple of months,” Toloui said.

“The purpose of the fund is to try to target select set of priority areas that are important to catalyzing larger volumes of private sector investment in this sector,” he added.