Manila Water income rises 19% to P2.4B in ’06

Manila Water Co., a subsidiary of Ayala Corp., reported a 19-percent growth in its net income last year to P2.4 billion from P2.01 billion in 2005, mainly due to higher revenues.

In a statement released yesterday, Manila Water said revenues reached P6.5 billion or 17 percent higher than the previous year, largely a result of the company’s ongoing operating efficiency improvements and unrelenting efforts to provide better water and wastewater services to its customers.

"The improved level of net income was a result of our P4.8-billion capital investments in 2006. This brings our total investments to P23 billion since 1997. We expect to continue the same level of investment in the coming years," said Manila Water president Antonino T. Aquino.

For this year, the company is setting aside more than P4 billion for its projects to allow it to sustain operating efficiencies, ensure the reliability of the system and continue its network expansion.

Water sales registered an all-time high of 948 million liters per day, representing a 10-percent growth over the previous year’s level and the highest in the past five years. This achievement was supported by the company’s aggressive expansion programs which allowed it to add 103,000 new household connections, bringing total households served to 870,000 as of end-December last year.

Manila Water also noted that it has already provided clean and affordable water to more than one million poor people in Metro Manila’s east zone. Water availability has likewise improved with 98 percent of customers connected to the central distribution system receiving 24- hour water supply.

System losses or non-revenue water dropped to a historic low of 30 percent as of end-2006, a five-percentage point reduction from the previous year’s level. The improvement was attributed to the company’s effective management of water supply, coupled with massive pipe and meter replacement projects.

To date, the company recovers more than half of the water volume that was initially lost due to network inefficiencies when it first took over the east zone concession in 1997 from the state-run Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System.

Manila Water has laid over 1,877 kilometers of new pipelines within the east zone, representing more than half of its total network.

Sewerage and sanitation programs also made substantial progress during the past year through the Manila Third Sewerage Project, a P4-billion project being carried out by Manila Water in cooperation with the World Bank.