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Friday, August 19, 2005
Zosa: Looking good: Balamban and Toledo
By Elbert Zosa
Biz Vantage
ENTHUSIASTIC. I had wanted badly to attend this paper’s economic forum but as schedule conflicts go, I had an important appointment that afternoon in Manila. A friend of mine, however, who is a managing director of a top law firm in Manila, flew to Cebu just for this event. He was enthusiastically telling me about the good things happening in Cebu. He was particularly impressed by the vision of Balamban as the fourth largest shipbuilder in the world.
Shipbuilding BUOYS BALAM-BAN. I checked out Bobby Aboitiz’s presentation on Tsuneishi and FBMA on the Sun.Star’s website and was happy to note the numbers showing total exports from 1994 projected to 2006 of $1.2 billion, specially the $550 million for 2005 to 2006 alone. I hope these are indicative of the trend for the future of rapid growth. The $29 million (P1.6 billion pesos roughly) payroll for 2003 to 2004 also manifests the infusion of disposable income—that in turn leads to further growth in the community—and of the improved well-being of the people especially after imputing multiplier effects. (I just hope that the sizeable portion of this payroll really goes to labor and not just to expats and other executives.)
I had also bumped into Peter Favila, the new secretary of trade and industry, over the weekend. He has hit the ground running in his new post with the able support of Trade’s competent old hands, like Tom Aquino, the senior undersecretary. Peter’s important thrusts include the development of mining.
Peter says that in the successful manner that the Arabs have extracted treasure from under the ground, the Philippines should be taking advantage of God-given resources to help the country and its population.
Of course, we should put in the necessary safeguards to protect the environment and the people who might be displaced. We should also ensure that we optimize the benefit from this effort. We should learn from previous mining experience and from the dissipation of our forests, which has shown little for the country but devastating effects.
CoppeR To Burnish Toledo Again. I noted with interest the innovation that Atlas Mining in Toledo plans to pre-sell its future copper production to interested bidders. Reportedly, Atlas can generate 175,000 tons of concentrate with 50,000 tons of copper per year.
Prices of copper have zoomed due to the incessant demand from China and from the economic recovery of other countries. As commodities go, however, there are cycles of boom and depressed prices. Luckily, now that the Supreme Court has allowed foreign interests in mining, metal prices are at their peak.
Atlas is also planning to a take advantage of a new policy that will allow mining firms an exemption from the requirement of three years profitable operations before listing, as it intends to have an initial public offering for a subsidiary.
These announcements have pushed up Atlas’ stock these last few days. Hopefully, Atlas will be running by late next year as they project.
These are great developments for that corridor of Cebu from Toledo to Balamban that will also push all the satellite business that support shipbuilding and mining.
I hope that the government will also do its share for these industries, in terms of public infrastructure. Our roads in Cebu could stand a lot of improvement.
As this column has said in the past, good infrastructure alone is a catalyst for growth and we need to boost the other parts of Cebu as well.
(elzosa@yahoo.com)
(August 19, 2005 issue)
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