Monday, July 6, 2009 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES [ BusinessWorld Online ]
THE BATANGAS provincial board’s ways and means committee will recommend a cut in real property values in most industrial estates to help locators weather the current economic crisis.
In a telephone interview last week, committee chairman Chona M. Dimayuga said she will submit the committee report on the revision of the real property values to the provincial board this week.
"We are recommending lower valuation for industrial estates since these were the ones primarily affected by the global economic crisis," she said.
The proposal, if approved, will apply to the four industrial estates in the province.
In the recommendation, property value in the First Philippine Industrial Park in the municipality of Sto. Tomas, which caters to light and medium export manufacturing and information technology firms, will be slashed to P2,000 per square meter from P3,400/sq.m. Property values in the Lima Technology Center in Malvar and in the Cocochem Agro-Industrial Park in Bauan will drop to P1,500 sq.m. from P2,000/sq.m. But the value in Bacnotan Industrial Park in Calaca will remain at P1,000/sq.m.
Ms. Dimayuga said that the measure still has to be approved by the provincial board on second and third reading, and signed by the governor before it becomes an ordinance.
But she said the board aims for the approval of the ordinance before yearend so that assessments, bearing the new valuations, can be sent out before January. "The revised real property values should be made effective by January 2010," she said.
She added that while lower real property values would mean lower realty tax collections, the local government can make up for it through intensified tax collections. — L. D. Desiderio
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