By Iris C. Gonzales (The Philippine Star) Updated April 29, 2010 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - From a valuation of P15.9 billion in 2009, the government’s Food Terminals Inc. (FTI) property in Taguig is now for sale for only P7.5 billion to P9 billion, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said yesterday.
For the second time this year, the government has decided to lower the price of the agro-industrial property on hopes that it would finally be able to attract buyers for the prime asset.
“We are in the process of negotiations. We’re hoping to raise P7.5 to P9 billion,” Teves said.
In early February, the government also decided to lower the selling price of the property to P9 to P10 billion from a previous estimate of P13 billion.
However, a government source privy to the privatizatiion of FTI said the sale is unlikely to take place this year because investors are still on a wait-and-see stance on the results of the elections in May.
“People are holding on to their funds,” said the government source.
Teves, nonetheless, remains optimistic that the government would be able to sell FTI before June 30 as it is already in negotiations with interested parties.
Sources said the property has been offered to giant developers including the Ayala Group, Robinson’s Land and Henry Sy’s SM Development Corp.
FTI is a 120-hectare agro-industrial commercial estate in Taguig. It was originally built to be a food processing and consolidation center for agricultural products. It houses more than 300 small-to-medium scale companies engaged in different industries such as manufacturing, garments and electronics.
Of the 120-hectare property, the government is selling 103 hectares because the remaining 17 hectares are owned by the National Food Authority (NFA).
Last year, private property developers snubbed a public bidding for the property, resulting in a failure of bidding.
Four developers including the Ayala Land Inc. and the Gokongweis’ Robinsons Land Corp. earlier expressed interest in vying for the FTI property but none of them submitted bids during last year’s sale.
The government is counting on the FTI sale to boost revenues and plug an estimated record deficit of P293 billion this year.
Proceeds from the FTI sale will form part of the P30 billion programmed collections from privatization of state-owned assets this year.
Because of the setbacks in privatization of state-owned assets, the government’s budget deficit widened to P134.2 billion in the first quarter of the year from P119.7 billion recorded in the same period last year.
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