DMCI Holdings Inc. said Monday it teamed up with a Japanese group to bid for the first phase of the North-South Commuter Rail project.
DMCI Holdings president Isidro Consunji did not identify the Japanese joint venture partner because of a non-disclosure agreement.
Consunji earlier flew to Japan to finalize the joint venture partnership with the Japanese group.
The joint venture partners plan to bid for the 38-kilometer rail line connecting Malolos, Bulacan and Tutuban, Manila.
The first phase of the elevated railway is expected to reduce travel time from Malolos to Tutuban to 35 minutes from 2 hours and allow economic activities to spread out to the surrounding areas of Metro Manila.
The NSCR project will be partially funded by Japan’s official development assistance loan amounting to 241.991 billion yen signed in November 2015.
The project will use advanced Japanese technologies, including seismic designs to make the infrastructure disaster-resilient.
Meanwhile, DMCI Holdings said construction unit D.M. Consunji Inc. posted a net income of P676 million in the first half, up 36 percent from P479 million recorded in the same period last year.
This was brought about by a higher gross profit percentage of the business units due to the late approval of variation orders which were already accomplished in the previous period.
First-half revenues reached P7.2 billion, up 13 percent from P6.4 billion a year ago, as the company completed more projects this year.
DMCI expects better performance from the construction unit this year because of more ongoing projects and newly-awarded projects that will commence later this year.
The company said the building business saw a 48-percent increase in revenue in the first half, while the infrastructure business suffered a 9-percent dip in revenue because of the delays related to right-of-way issues.
DMCI said recent developments in the availability of right-of-way would help improve the company’s revenue in the second half.
It said the ongoing bids and negotiations for privately-funded projects and the government’s rollout of the ‘Build, Build, Build’ program would also help the company increase its order booking next year.
