Australian agri logistics pledge drives record SBMA investments

THE Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) booked P111.5 billion worth of newly-approved investment projects in the first seven months of the year, its highest for any comparable period since its establishment in 1992, owing to the P70.5 billion to be invested by Australasia Cold Storage Logistics Pty. Ltd. and AIA Airways Co.

In a statement, the investment promotion agency said that its year-to-date total of newly-approved pledges is over 500% higher than the full year total new investments in 2015 and up 132.78 % from the P47.9-billion total from 2012 to 2015.

SBMA said that the largest investment approved in Subic from the period of January to August this year came from Australasia Cold Storage and AIA Airways.

“The logistics investment project will involve transporting agricultural products from Australia, mostly meat and seafood; repacking them in Subic; and then flying or shipping them out to customers worldwide,” the statement read, adding that it would also put up an intermodal cargo terminal, with the airport and seaport expected to have throughput of about 60 containers per month for Subic Port.

SBMA also said that Dynamic Konstruk Enterprises also pledged P34 billion for a solar and industrial estate project, which would include the development of a 200-megawatt solar plant, the construction of warehouses and logistics facilities, and the establishment of factories in a 400-hectare area in the Redondo Peninsula near the site of the Hanjin shipyard.

SBMA added that once on stream, the new approved investments would create 54,973 new jobs.

FDI commitments do not yet represent actual financial inflows, but mere pledges registered with any of the seven investment promotion agencies (IPAs) for the purpose of availing of tax and other incentives provided by law.

The seven IPAs are the Board of Investments ( BoI), Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Clark Development Corp., SBMA, Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan, BoI-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and Cagayan Economic Zone Authority. —