Gov't to push sale of FTI this year

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration will still push for the sale of the government’s Food Terminals Inc. (FTI) property in Taguig this year.

Finance Undersecretary John Philip Sevilla said that the government is already in the “advanced stages” in the sale of the property.

“It would happen this year,” Sevilla said.

However, Sevilla refused to divulge details on who the interested parties are and whether they have met the minimum bid of P13 billion.

The Finance department earlier said that it was willing to enter into a negotiated sale with private investors for the FTI property.

Robinsons Land has signified to the Aquino administration its intent to bid for the FTI property in Taguig.

The Aquino administration hopes to sell the property at a price higher than the P7 to P9-billion tab set by the previous government for the agro-industrial estate.

Aside from Robinsons Land, the property has been offered to giant developers including the Ayala Group and Henry Sy’s SM Development Corp.

In 2009, private property developers snubbed a public bidding for the property, resulting in a failure of bidding.

FTI is a 120-hectare agro-industrial commercial estate in Taguig. It was originally built to be a food processing and consolidation center for agricultural products. It houses more than 300 small-to-medium scale companies engaged in different industries such as manufacturing, garments and electronics.

Of the 120-hectare property, the government is selling 103 hectares because the remaining 17 hectares are owned by the National Food Authority (NFA).

Aside from FTI, the government is also looking into other state-owned assets that may be privatized by the Aquino administration. It is now doing an inventory of assets that may be put on the auction block.

Revenues to be generated from the sale of state-owned assets will help the government plug its budget deficit.

The government is eyeing to keep the budget deficit at roughly P300 billion this year or 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from the actual P314.4 billion incurred last year.