The Philippines plans to allow overseas companies to build infrastructure worth at least US$1 billion as the nation doubles spending on roads, ports and bridges to bolster its tourism and farm sectors, Philippine Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson said.
Licenses can be issued to foreign contractors that will pledge investments, with estimates placing the requirement at as much as US$1 billion in the form of equity and equipment, Singson said in an interview in Manila on Tuesday.
Currently, foreign builders apply for a special permit per project.
“We have a bigger pie for everyone,” Singson said. “I need more contractors. Opening it up to foreign players, provided the field is even, will increase competition, improve efficiency and result in better prices for government.”
The Southeast Asian nation, lagging neighbors from Malaysia to Thailand in infrastructure spending, is targeting 404 billion pesos (US$9.2 billion) worth of projects this year, or twice the amount it spent in 2011, helped by higher tax revenue and savings on public works due to reduced corruption, Singson said.
By 2016, spending on infrastructure should double to 824 billion pesos, or 5 percent of GDP.
Since the start of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III’s term in 2010 to March this year, the Department of Public Works and Highways has accumulated about 26 billion pesos in savings after curbing corruption, Singson said.
Savings may rise a further 10 billion pesos in the next two years, which will help fund 2,000km of farm-to-market roads estimated to cost about 12 billion pesos, he said.
Foreign companies can augment the capacity of a handful of local contractors able to take on big projects, Singson said, adding that rules may be finalized this year and implemented next year, in time for the planned integration of ASEAN economies.
The government is also looking to increase opportunities for local firms in the ASEAN market by drawing up a common registry for builders in the region, he said.
The Philippines has been opening up infrastructure to foreign companies as Aquino oversees an economic revival that led to GDP growth of 7.2 percent last year, quickening from 6.8 percent the year before. The transportation department has awarded an US$82.9 million airport project in Palawan to a venture of South Korea’s Kumho Industrial Co Ltd and GS Engineering & Construction Corp to boost its annual capacity to 2 million passengers from 350,000.
Last month, the agency signed a 25-year contract with a venture of GMR Infrastructure Ltd of India and Philippine builder Megawide Construction Corp to improve and operate the Mactan-Cebu Airport, the nation’s second-busiest terminal.
The public works department has completed about 67 percent of a 54 billion peso program to build 2,000km of roads to beaches, mountains and other areas earmarked for tourism, Singson said.
Tourism will account for 10 percent of Philippine GDP by 2016 from 7 percent now, Philippine Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez said in a separate interview on Tuesday.
Annual revenue from tourism has increased to about US$4.7 billion from less than US$3 billion before Aquino’s term, Jimenez said.
“It has ballooned into a serious industry,” he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six