Source: InterAksyon, 9 January 2012
MANILA, Philippines – President Benigno S. Aquino III welcomed the plan of an international logistics group Kuwait and Gulf Link, to invest an additional $ 500 million in the Philippines.
KGL Group of Companies Chairman and Managing Director Saeed Dashti, together with KGL Group Vice Chairman Marsha Lazareva and Investment Director Mark Williams, called on the President in Malacañang on Monday to personally convey the company’s investment plan.
The KGL Group has already invested $200 million for the construction of the Gateway Logistics Center, a 177-hectare development project which hosts business enterprises and operations of aviation and logistics related businesses located in the Clark Export Processing Zone in Pampanga.
Trade Undersecretary Cristino Panlilio said the additional $500 million would be used for infrastructure logistics, like the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programs and other investment potentials.
Panlilio said the President wanted the investment plan to move expeditiously but directed that “everything will have to be bidded out transparently.”
“He (President Aquino) welcomes this (KGL Group investment). This is definitely what we need here but of course everything will have to be bidded out transparently,” Panlilio said.
“We cannot give out extra or special favors but what we can offer you is a transparent bidding that will be done and will go straight to the departments and not to political patrons,” he added.
