29 October 2012, Manila Bulletin
by Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat
At least $1.5 billion worth of investments are expected to pour into the country from five Australian companies that committed to expand operations here following the recent five-day visit of President Aquino to Australia and New Zealand.
Trade and Industry Undersecretary Cristino L. Panlilio told reporters these investments have been committed by fund manager Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Asset, Melco Crown of Australia, AG&P, Austal, and Telstra.
According to Panlilio, Macquarie has committed a $600 million for infrastructure projects in the country under the government’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program. Macquarie has partnered with the state-owned pension fund manager Government Service Insurance System. The joint venture has expressed interest to fund the construction of the NAIA Expressway, one of the PPP projects.
Melco Crown in partnership with the SM Group has committed to invest $600 million for a tourism project at the Pagcor Entertainment City in Pasay City.
“Melco’s investment is going to complete the four major investors in the Entertainment City,” Panlilio said.
On the other hand, the country’s biggest industrial engineering firm AG & P has bagged an initial contract of $200 million for the assembly and processing of steel materials for the construction of LNG facilities in Australia.
Panlilio explained that Australia has $10 billion to $20 billion worth of LNG and CNG projects in the pipeline in the next five years as the use of natural gas is expected to prevail globally. In fact, the US is expected to surpass Saudi Arabia as world’s bigger producer of fuel and even to surpass other fossil fuel exporting countries.
“So, countries are investing in LNG and CNG facilities,” he said.
Under the AG&P contract, Australian LNG firms are going to supply the Filipino firm with the raw materials – steel and iron – to be assembled and processed here for reexport to Australia. The construction of the assembled materials into an LNG facility in Australia would be undertaken by another Australian contractor.
Oceania Gold is also investing an additional $40 million for its Nueva Ecija gold mining operation, Panlilio said.
Austal, one of Australia’s biggest shipbuilder, is pouring in additional $10 million for its shipbuilding operation in Balamban, Cebu where the company is expected to hire additional 1,000 workers.
Telstra, the world’s seventh biggest telecommunications firm, did not commit to how much it could invest but said it would put up a direct BPO operation here that would ramp up its manpower to 10,000 from its current 6,000 employe operation under a subcontracting scheme.
