CIA’s future

There’s a new entrance procedure at the ongoing international buyers show–that’s Manila FAME–at the World Trade Center. Everybody’s ear is poked with a thermometer. Everybody is also issued a face mask, for free.

Before the outbreak of the dreaded SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), the Asian itinerary of foreign buyers started in Hong Kong, then the Philippines and elsewhere and ended in China. Well, HK’s part of the itinerary this year drew less than 400 buyers compared to the 4,800 plus it generated last year.

Foreign buyers attending Manila FAME remained stable at about 600 buyers and these foreign buyers flew in from Tokyo instead of from Hong Kong–just in case, you understand.

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Did you know 1: The Securities and Exchange Commission obviously thought it would be easy for everyone to distinguish between Delphi Group, Inc., which is chaired by former Far East Bank and Trust Co. president Octavio Espiritu, and Delphi Corp., which is chaired by car importer (and one of the biggest Filipino investor in Vietnam) Jose Ch. Alvarez.

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Did you know 2: That former Tarlac congressman Herminio Aquino is being bruited as the next Clark International Airport president is, well, strange.

For one, the CIA president is historically held, on a concurrent basis, by the president of Clark Development Corp. This means Emmanuel Angeles.

For another, President Macapagal-Arroyo earlier ordered the merger of CIA into CDC, in the process, getting rid of its board, management, and most of the staff of the airport management company not absorbed by CDC.

Then again, CIA is in an interesting money-making position now that United Parcel Services has frontloaded its lease payments to pay off existing CIA debts.

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Trade and Investment Corp. of the Philippines president Joel Valdes and executive vice-president Rolando Alonzo are currently in the United States for a two-week business trip.

Among other things, Mr. Valdes and Rolly Alonzo (together with the Department of Energy’s non-conventional energy officer-in-charge Reynaldo Liganor) will conduct a due diligence study of Sun Power Corp. USA in Austin, Texas, and Cypress Semiconductor in Silicon Valley, California.

Cypress is the majority stockholder of Sun Power, which is, in turn, the mother company of Sun Power Phils. Manufacturing Ltd.

Sun Power has chosen to locate its manufacturing plant for high technology wafer fab in the Philippines rather than in India in exchange for a government guarantee (through Tidecorp) on $200 million in additional funding which Sun Power will source internationally.

Production in Laguna will start next year.