Rivals San Miguel Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp.’s planned partnership would resolve the alignment issue of two expressway projects in the southern part of Manila that both companies are proposing to construct.
San Miguel, in a disclosure on Tuesday said that it agreed in principle with MPIC to jointly develop an expressway connecting Batangas and Cavite province.
“The management teams of both groups are currently discussing the terms and conditions of the definitive agreement implementing the same,” San Miguel said in a statement.
The partnership between the two companies would address the alignment issue of the P27 billion Cavite-Batangas Expressway Project proposed by San Miguel and the P22.4-billion Cavite-Tagaytay-Batangas Expressway Project by Metro Pacific Tollways South.
The provincial government earlier approved the unsolicited proposal of San Miguel Holdings Corp., the infrastructure unit of SMC, for the 27.06-kilometer Cavite-Batangas Expressway.
CBEX will traverse the municipalities of Silang, Amadeo, Tagaytay, Indang, Mendez and Alfonso in Cavite and Nasugbu in Batangas. It is shorter than the proposed toll road submitted by another group to the national government.
Metro Pacific Tollway’s Corp. in 2018 proposed to the Department of Public Works and Highways a similar project that would also connect Cavite and Batangas through Tagaytay City.
The DPWH then granted the original proponent status to MPTC for CTBEX—a 50.4-kilometer toll road that will connect Cavite and Batangas, with a spur road to Tagaytay City and ultimately terminating in Nasugbu and another spur road to Tuy, Batangas.
CTBEX is expected to decongest about 23,000 vehicles daily from the nearby thoroughfares. Cavite and Batangas are rapidly-growing provinces that host major industrial parks, commercial districts and residential projects.