Conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. said it plans to spend P77 billion this year to fund the expansion of its power generation unit and other businesses.
AEV chief finance officer Manuel Lozano said about P61 billion of the P77-billion capital expenditures for 2018 would go to unit Aboitiz Power Corp. in support of the latter’s thermal and renewable projects and exploratory and operating activities.
The group’s food, infrastructure and real estate units will also spend P4 billion to P5 billion each this year, while banking arm Union Bank of the Philippines plans to invest P2.4 billion in 2018.
Lozano said the group’s food business under Philmico was aggressive in expanding its core businesses in the Philippines while building new ones in the Southeast Asian region.
Pilmico plans to increase flour exports to Asean, while its farms business would epxand its animal stock to 20,000 sows and integrate the business through the value chain with a new meat processing plant.
Pilmico aims to expand its current monthly egg production from 4 million pieces in 2017 to 15 million pieces by quadrupling layers’ capacity.
Aboitiz Land, the group’s property unit, plans to launch three residential projects on top of its largest commercial project to date”•The Outlets at Lipa.
Aboitiz InfraCapital, the group’s infrastructure unit, will start constructing the P14-billion Agua-Apo water project in Davao this year.
Lozano said the construction of the project was expected to start soon, after securing nearly all the required permits needed to implement the project.
The company is also set to finalize funding for the project. Under the plan, APO Agua will supply up to 300 million liters per day of potable bulk water from Tamugan River, which will benefit more than 1 million people in Davao City. The group hopes to complete the project by 2020.
Lozano said the group’s cement unit, Republic Cement and Building Materials Inc., would continue with the debottlnecking of existing plants to improve the efficiency of these facilities.
RCBM targets to increase its cement production capacity to 10 million metric tons over the next couple of years from the current 7 million MT.
