Zobel scion gets DTI post

Jaime Alfonso Zobel de Ayala, CEO of AC Mobility and part of the next generation of leaders at the Zobel clan, has been appointed a member of the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) committee tasked with strengthening foreign investments under a new batch of Malacañang appointees.

In a stock exchange filing on Friday, Ayala-backed telecommunications giant Globe Telecom Inc. disclosed the young Zobel’s appointment as a member and private sector representative from the National Capital Region under the DTI’s Inter-Agency Investment Promotion Coordination Committee (IIPCC).

Zobel will serve a three-year term, according to Globe, where he sits as a board member.

Under the implementing rules and regulations of Foreign Investments Act of 1991, the IIPCC will “integrate all promotion and facilitation efforts to encourage foreign investments in the country.”

It also notes that there will only be four private sector representatives: one each from Metro Manila, Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.

The 32-year-old Zobel scion has been heading AC Mobility, the Ayala Group’s mobility arm, since September 2023. Prior to that, he was co-head of the Ayala strategy and development group.

Under AC Mobility, he wants to beef up the country’s automotive industry through electric vehicles, which President Marcos has been supporting.

The company became the official distributor of BYD, a Chinese manufacturer of plug-in hybrid and pure EVs, last year. BYD has at least four dealerships in the country, including one in Cebu province.

Zobel previously said they wanted to increase this to 20 branches within this year while building 100 charging stations.

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Earlier this year, Mr. Marcos expressed his support for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) goal of gradually increasing the share of EVs in the fleet of government-owned and -controlled corporations from 5 percent to 10 percent.

By 2040, this is expected to rise to 50 percent, according to the DOE.

Consumers in the Philippines have been slowly shifting toward EVs. Data from the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. and the Truck Manufacturers Association showed that 9,775 EV units were sold in the first seven months of the year, nearing the 10,602 units sold for the whole of 2023.

Hybrid vehicles were sold the most at 8,638 units, followed by battery EVs with 1,101 units.