Saturday, February 23, 2008 Chinese-backed investors eye sugarcane venture in S. Cotabato
T'BOLI, South Cotabato -- A group of investors has expressed interest to develop a 20,000-hectare sugarcane plantation in this town, already the host of two large agribusiness companies.
Mayor Ernesto Manuel said Chinese investors and Filipino businessmen from Bacolod have been in touch with the local government unit (LGU) for the planned massive sugarcane project for bioethanol production.
"We have lands to accommodate them. Our precondition, however, is that they must put up a bioethanol plant in our locality. We won't allow them to utilize our lands and then bring their produce somewhere else," Manuel said.
The investors, whom the mayor failed to name, seemed to be amenable to the arrangement since Manuel said they have already started scouring the area to identify plantation sites.
Manuel said they are waiting for the investors to formally present their proposal to the Municipal Council, which is expected to issue a resolution backing the project.
T'boli town has more than enough lands for agribusiness ventures even if it already hosts banana and pineapple companies Upland Banana Corp and Dole Philippines, Inc., he added.
Manuel said the town has 90,000 hectares and that the combined plantations of Upland Banana and Dolefil have not yet reached 10,000 hectares.
He said the entry of a new agribusiness player in the locality will generate more employment to the community and would increase tax earnings of the LGU.
Manuel's revelation that investors are eyeing sugarcane plantation in his town is apparently in step with the Republic Act 9637 or the Biofuels Act of 2006, which was signed by President Arroyo into law in January 2007.
Under Republic Act 9637, oil companies are mandated to blend 5 percent ethanol in gasoline products two years after the signing, or starting in 2009.
Four years after the effectivity of the law, the blend will be increased to 10 percent.
Earlier, Fernando Martinez, chair of independent oil company Eastern Petroleum Corp., announced they are planning to put up an ethanol plant in General Santos City, about 100 kilometers from this town, hopefully before 2010.
At a mandatory 5 percent blend, Martinez said ethanol demand in the country would run to around 200 million to 300 million liters yearly starting next year and 600 million liters by 2010.
He projected that as many as four to five plants should be constructed to meet the 300 million liters estimated demand.
He said the project, which will be carried out by subsidiary Eastern Renewable-Fuels Corp., has the financial backing of Chinese firm Guanxi State Farm.
Guanxi, according to Martinez is a Chinese-government owned corporation "twice as bigger as the San Miguel Corp. in the Philippines" with nearly a hundred subsidiaries.
Arroyo meantime signed the biofuels act as a strategy towards "energy independence" from imported oil, increase economic activity and boost employment in the agriculture sector and contribute to improving air quality by rescuing toxic vehicular emissions in the air.
