Malaysians invest P23B in Mindanao
January 30, 2013 at 05:33pm
Malaysian investors began this week their talks and selection of probable location of their businesses here and other parts of Mindanao after they committed last year P23 billion in investments in industrial and agriculture. Secretary Lualhati Antonino, chief of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), said the Malaysians came in separate groups, one with interest in car distribution, the other group with an eye on palm oil.
The Tan Chong group, Malaysia’s biggest car distributor, arrived on Tuesday and talked with city government investment officials and studied the location of an industrial park north of downtown. The other group, organized by the Putrajaya Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also talked with local government and business officials on Thursday, and did business matching with local business owners.
The Tan Chong group has indicated it may build a car-manufacturing and distributorship business in Mindanao, and was given a tour of the First Industrial Business Park within the Lapanday Properties in Mandug and Tigatto area.
The business park was part of the township project of the Lorenzo-owned Lapanday Properties.
The Putrajaya business chamber gathered 15 of the biggest investors in consumer and agriculture products.
Antonino said the three biggest palm oil producers in Malaysia joined the business chamber’s group.
In the November business networking forum in Kuala Lumpur organized by the MinDA and the Philippine Embassy, Malaysian investors committed to put up businesses in Mindanao with an aggregate value of P23 billion. They said they would still be looking at the prospects and location.
“Those interested in palm-oil plantation, they were looking at 68,000 hectares to plant them,” she said. Although some would scout areas in the Agusan provinces, where Mindanao’s first palm-oil plantation was established in the 1980s, the others preferred to go to the Moro-populated areas, Romeo Montenegro, chief of the investment promotion and public affairs unit of MinDA, earlier said in a press conference on Monday.
Antonino said they would await the final decision of the Malaysian investors after their visits here this week.
Source: Manuel T. Cayon/Business Mirror
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