By Jenniffer B. Austria | May. 20,
2014 at 12:01am [ manilastandardtoday.com ]
SM Investments Corp. has expressed
interest in teaming up with San Miguel Corp. for the planned $10-billion
airport project on a 1,600-hectare a portion of Manila Bay in Parañaque, Las
Piñas and Bacoor, Cavite.
“We can talk. That’s what we need for
our country to grow in the next stage,” SM Investments chief finance officer
Jose Sio said in an interview at the sidelines of the company’s P15-billion
bond listing with Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp.
Sio said the proposed airport project
would be good for the economy and help improve the country’s infrastructure.
The site of the proposed airport
project is near the 300-hectare proposed reclamation project of SM group with
the Pasay City government.
Sio, however, said there were no
ongoing talks with San Miguel over the airport project.
San Miguel presented to Malacanang
Palace last week the proposed $10-billion modern international airport.
San Miguel president and chief
operating officer Ramon Ang said the planned airport project would be designed
to have four runways capable of handling 150 million passengers annually and
could accommodate 250 takeoffs and landings per hour.
The Ninoy Aquino International Airport
has a capacity of only 40 takeoffs and landings per hour, he said.
Ang said San Miguel could handle the
financing of the project and was willing to invite other businessmen such as
the Sys, Gokongweis and Zobels to participate in the development of the
project.
Ang said the airport would be built on
the project started by Cyber Bay Corp., which has already reclaimed 157 hectares.
Cyber Bay earlier planned to develop
Cyber Bay City on Freedom Islands located along Manila-Cavite Coastal Road in
the cities of Paranaque and Las Pinas and the town of Bacoor in Cavite.
Ang, who once served as chairman of
Cyber Bay Corp., said as the whole project would require 1,600 hectares of
land, San Miguel was in talks with a potential partner that would oversee the
reclamation and construction of the project.
San Miguel, which also owns a stake in
flag carrier Philippine Airlines, proposed to finance the $10-billion
construction cost of the new airport project, including an expressway that will
connect the airport to the Makati central business district.
_____________________________________________________________
