Industrial park in Lapu eyes zone expansion

CEBU, Philippines - The Science Park of the Philippines, Inc., developer and operator of the 62-hectare Cebu Light Industrial Park In.,(CLIP), is now actively looking for available land area that will meet the requirement for expansion of the industry zone.

In an interview, CLIP vice president Eugenio Milben T. Estrera said that the economic zone is now 40 percent occupied, and that the remaining lots are already booked. Only about a hectare is open for potential investor.

However, due to the surging interest from electronics, energy and food processing manufacturing investors, the company is now on negotiations with several lot owners to acquire at least 50 hectares of property for its expansion plan, either within the Lapu-Lapu City and Cordova areas, or probably in other parts of Metro Cebu.

At present, there are a total of 19 locators at the zone, employing a total of 2,100 people. Within this year, CLIP is expecting to host four more investors that will build and set up plants in the zone.

“We are riding in the crest of economic boom. We have noticed increasing number of inquiries and interest from both local and foreign investors,” said Estrera.

Earlier, Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) president Lito Maderazo urged developers to embark into building more economic zones in Cebu in order to attract manufacturing FDIs.

“We would rather encourage private developers that will create economic zones. Ours in Cebu are almost full,” said Maderazo.

“We need manufacturing to aid our growth in BPO and tourism. We can’t continue to soar in ‘one leg'; manufacturing is the key to have a balance economic growth,” Maderaso added.

At least 500 Japanese firms have expressed interest in locating plants in the Philippines, including Cebu, 200 of which are into manufacturing.

Maderazo said that Cebu is now gaining interest for manufacturing-based investments and that it has to direct its effort in reintroducing the attractiveness of Cebu in terms of manufacturing investments.

Although most foreign direct investments in Cebu are in the business process outsourcing or knowledge process outsourcing, Maderazo said Cebu has noted a strong interest from manufacturing companies abroad, specifically from Japan.

There are at least 107 thousand people now employed in the manufacturing companies in Cebu, while the BPO and IT sector is employing close to 100 thousand.

Meanwhile, although building more PEZA-registered zones may attract more investors, what is more important is for Cebu to show off its friendliness to investors by fixing the problem of increasing power costs and infrastructure, in general, making the province’s cost of doing business much competitive, Maderazo said.

University of Asia & the Pacific economic professor Bernardo Villegas said that Cebu’s strength in services will not only serve the BPO market, but also largely the manufacturing sector.

“You have to go back in attracting the manufacturing related investments again,” Villegas told Cebuano business community during the recent economic briefing. 

Villegas believes that there is a need to restore the manufacturing strength of the Philippines while China is having labor problems right now, and some manufacturing firms are looking at other investment sites for relocation or expansion.

Economic experts believe that the Philippines should seriously consider attracting the manufacturing investments in order to solve its unemployment problem and balance the job opportunity distribution that will include the grassroots. —JMD (FREEMAN)