Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. said it is investing in energy projects, ports and bulk water facilities to support the economic growth in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
San Miguel signed a memorandum of understanding with ARMM to build a power plant that would provide long-term solution to Mindanao’s power crisis. ARMM is composed of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi provinces.
San Miguel committed to build the power plant that would serve the entire ARMM region, with estimated 573,446 households, over the next two years.
Only 30 percent of households in ARMM had electricity. Blackouts, particularly during the summer months, were prevalent.
San Miguel president and chief operating officer Ramon Ang said in a statement instability, lack of infrastructure and lack of a stable power supply made investors wary in ARMM.
Ang said San Miguel’s vote of confidence in the war-torn region was expected to create much-needed jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, provide a major economic boost to ARMM and ease worries over perceived investment risks.
Ang, who signed the MOU together with ARMM governor Mujiv Hataman, said the region represented one of the most under-penetrated markets in the Philippines, “but is a region ripe for investment offering huge potential growth.”
San Miguel said the investment in ARMM was in line with its strategy to locate facilities and production centers outside urban centers, creating strong “second-tier cities,” generating jobs and rebalancing the national economy by income and growth dispersal.
“San Miguel has shown great vision by choosing to invest in ARMM. Over the next few years, we’re going to see what can be achieved when the private and the public sector work together with the best interests of the local communities at heart,” Hataman said.
San Miguel is an active participant in the economic development of Mindanao. Ang earlier said San Miguel was looking at putting up three power plants with a capacity of 300 megawatts in the company’s planned industrial estate projects in Mindanao.
Each industrial estate development would cover about 2,000 hectares. The company also disclosed plans for an industrial estate in Davao del Sur province.
“We’re doing those projects in Davao. We want to help address power shortage in Mindanao. We’re putting up industrial estates. We want to create lots of job opportunities for the people of Mindanao,” Ang said.
“We have so many projects in Mindanao. We’re putting up a food complex in Phividec. We will also put up power plants in the industrial estates. We want to put up at leas t three industrial estates in Mindanao where businesses can locate,” he said .
He said San Miguel planned to put up an initial 300-megawatt power plant in each industrial estate in Mindanao. Each power plant would cost $2 million per MW, or for a total investment of $1.8 billion.