Tuesday, March 25, 2008 [ philstar.com ]
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has approved 30 new projects worth $12.3 million in the first two months of 2008, topping by seven percent the recorded volume of new investments in the same period last year.
The new projects brought to 961 the total number of registered investors in the freeport, SBMA administrator and chief executive officer Armand C. Arreza said.
He said the SBMA board of directors approved 10 new projects worth $6.2 million in January and 20 other investment proposals worth $6.1 million the following month.
Among the new projects, Hanafil Golf & Tour, Inc., a South Korean-owned firm, listed the biggest investment commitment at $3 million.
The company, which will establish and operate golf, tour and other related recreational facilities, also expects to hire as many as 1,495 workers when it reaches full operations, according to a profile submitted to the SBMA Business and Investment Department.
The other big new investors are Palmgold Int’l Ltd. of Malaysia, which committed $1.9 million for the importation of gaming equipment and operation of slot machine arcade, and Grand Pillar International Development, Inc., which will also invest $1.9 million to acquire and improve real estate properties in the freeport.
The other new investor-firms sharing the top ten list are Filipino-owned Janburlai Corp. and M. Waseem International Corp. of Pakistan, which both pledged $800,000; Transequip Co. Ltd. with $725,000; Wonjun International Corp. with $607,000; Dong Yang Food Machinery Philippines Corp., with $468,000; Builenc Phil. Co., Ltd. Corp. with $391,000; Ringsthree Inc. with $220,000; and Mini Melts Ice Cream Dream Corp. and Gaon International, Inc., which both committed $200,000.
Arreza said the SBMA is “highly optimistic” that the increases posted in the first two months of 2008 would set the pace for the rest of the year, as they did in the last two years.
“Given this growing investment trend that started two years ago, when Subic breached the $1-billion yearend total, chances are we’d get a higher investment output for the third succeeding year,” he added.
According to the SBMA Business Group, Subic posted a total of $1.42 billion in new investments in 2006 and $1.67 billion in 2007, when it signed in 164 new business locators.
Last year’s record represented an increase of 17 percent over the 2006 investment total, and brought Subic’s cumulative investment pledges to $5.43 billion.
Similarly, job opportunities in Subic are increasing with the new investment inflows, the SBMA said, with the new projects approved in January and February expected to contribute a total of 1,887 new jobs.
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