Wednesday, April 11, 2007 CV investments drop, BOI says By Malou M. Mozo Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THE volume of investments in Central Visayas went down last year compared with figures in 2005, the Board of Investment (BOI)-Cebu extension office records say.
Only six businesses registered with the BOI last year. They had a total project cost of P12.95 billion, down from the P17.70 billion registered in 2005.
Ernesto Pintac, former BOI chief, had said earlier that Cebu was “lucky” in 2005 due to the entry of “big ticket” projects.
Carmen Copper Corp., which invested P12.48 billion, was the biggest project that registered with BOI last year.
The modernization project of Shangri-La’s Mactan Island Resort and Spa worth P335.57 million followed. This was registered in the last quarter of 2006.
Robert Go, former president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is optimistic that more investments will start pouring in this year after Cebu’s successful hosting of the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit.
“With the Asean summit, plus the indicators of economic growth, more foreign direct investments will come,” he told Sun.Star Cebu.
However, he said what the country needs right now is to further strengthen its small and medium enterprise (SME)-base in order to attract foreign investors.
Job generation
“What we need are investments for job generation, not only in information technology-enabled services but we need to strongly push the SME sector, which is the backyard industry,” Go said.
The SME sector accounts for 80 percent to 90 percent of the country’s business environment, he added.
Go said a stronger SME-base will redound not only to generating employment but will also increase a person’s spending capacity, and thus help us become a magnet for foreign investors.
However, he said the country still needs to continuously address the problems on high wage and electricity cost, and come up with a stable and long term incentive plan for investors.
According to BOI-Cebu records, Kepco-Salcon Power Corp., which had an investment worth P15.2 billion, was the biggest project that was registered in 2005.
Other projects
The consortium seeks to establish two 100-megawatt coal-fired power plants in Naga, Cebu.
The other new projects that registered last year include 8990 Housing Development Corp., which invested P120.6 million, Kida Po Design Manufacturing Corp. with P7.14 million, A5TRX with P6.6 million and The Babes Pig Producers Inc. with P2.3 million.
The businesses, which came from different sectors, like mass housing, agriculture, resort, mining, and automatic machine, are located in the Cebu province.
The firms which secured the BOI’s approval will enjoy incentives, like income tax holidays, tax and customs duty exemptions on capital equipment and spare parts, and net operating loss carryover.
Despite a double-digit decrease in the volume of investments last year, the number of jobs created increased by 14 percent.
New jobs
The new jobs created by the six projects registered in 2006 totaled 3,743, which was higher than the 3,281 recorded in 2005.
The World Bank stressed the need for the Philippines to continuously attract both local and foreign direct investments, as well as improve the labor force skills to sustain its growth.
It also cited the need to address both the unemployment and underemployment problems.
