P1-B casino, P885-M aviation center to rise in Clark

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — A third casino costing P1 billion and a P885-million aviation training center costing P885 million are among the major investments expected in this special economic zone in 2006.

Antonio Ng, president and chief executive officer of the Clark Development Corp. (CDC), bared this as he described 2005 as "tremendously challenging and energizing" for the state-owned corporation.

Ng said the CDC has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Paradise Island Group for the construction of the P1-billion casino here starting this January.

The two existing casinos are located at the Fontana and Mimosa tourism estates.

Ng, who assumed the CDC post only nine months ago, said another MOA has been forged with the International Aviation Group (IAG) for a training center for Airbus for commercial airline pilots.

The IAG will invest P885 million in a flight simulator and single engine planes for the center.

"Driving the four engines of growth to generate jobs and economic activity will remain our priority next year," Ng said.

He also announced that two more hotels will open in the ecozone, offering "reasonable rates of P1,500 a day."

The two are the Pink Hotel, which will be renamed Raffles Hotel when it opens in March next year, and the 250-room Fort Stotsenberg Hotel which will open its doors three months later.

By mid-2006, Ng said a new private investor is expected to take over the 256-hectare Mimosa leisure estate.

The CDC has managed Mimosa since the government took over it from the Mimosa Leisure and Resorts Corp. in 1998 due to unpaid rentals and other arrears with creditors, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

Ng said the aborted Hacienda tourism estate, with a 36-hole golf course, which was never completed by its initial developer, is being "renegotiated" with still undisclosed investors.

"We are also in the midst of discussions with a Kuwaiti group of companies to develop a 300-hectare Clark technopark," he said.

The P500-million SM megamall here is expected to open in April next year.

Among CDC’s accomplishments this year, according to Ng, was the reopening last Dec. 8 of the mothballed Expo Pilipino theme park now renamed Clark Expo, which was never fully completed despite at least P1.6 billion spent to build it during the administration of former President Fidel Ramos. It was ordered shut down in 1998 amid supposed heavy losses.

Ng also cited the increase in activities at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, where "from five international flights a week, we are now at 39 flights weekly to six foreign cities."

"By January, Bangkok flights of Thai Air Asia will begin," he said. "We plan to expand the existing passenger terminal for completion by June 2008."

Despite the rise in oil prices, Ng said Clark has the lowest power rates in Luzon, with a 23-percent power rate reduction implemented last August.

"Observing what is right and doing what is just, we will work hard, work smart, work together, and pray together to generate jobs and economic activity," he said.