TAGOLOAN, Misamis Oriental—A Japanese-owned company inaugurated last month the Jacobi Carbons AB, considered the world’s largest coconut-based plant, at the economic zone of Phividec Industrial Estate here, an official said.
Chief executive Anders Skeini of JC AB said the new plant, which utilizes latest carbon activation technology, “would produce 20,000 metric tons of granulized charcoal for export.”
It seeks to provide jobs to some 1,000 qualified workers in Northern Mindanao when fully operated.
The firm also maintains other plants in China, Vietnam and Sri Lanka with its main headquarters based in Sweden and its parent firm in Japan, Skeini said.
He added that the facility “includes a charcoal granulation plant and multiple activation kilns with grinding and pulverizing capacity specializing in impregnation and water/acid washing.”
Sansaluna Pinagayao, zone administrator of Philippine Economic Zone Authority, said the “entry of JC will boost the country’s overall status of economic zones.”
Consequently, “the country’s $563-billion exports generated from the 3,500 companies in its 366 economic zones nationwide would increase by next year 2016,” Pinagayao said, noting that “this new milestone will upgrade Mindanao’s coconut industry.”
The Jacobi Carbons Group was founded in 1916 and acquired by Japan’s Osaka Gas Chemicals Co. in 2014. It “produces a full range of activated carbon products based on coal, coconut shell, wood and other raw materials.”