ECCP to raise energy security in forum

MANILA, Philippines - The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) intends to raise in an upcoming forum the crucial steps needed to make the country a haven for investments.

“Malacañang must take crucial steps to make the country a haven for investments. This can be done through a stable policy environment and more-than-enough infrastructure to cater to investors,” said ECCP vice-president for external affairs Henry Schumacher.

ECCP intends to raise these issues also in an Energy Forum in late May or early June. 

Schumacher added that in all focus group discussions with industry sectors, power supply stability and quality are raised as major concerns.

ECCP welcomes the country’s 2nd credit rating upgrade but hastened to add that more and bolder efforts need to be done by government to ensure energy supply stability and quality and thereby create a domestic environment truly conducive to job-friendly investments.

It said in a statement that top focus should be given, for instance, on putting enough power-generation projects on stream this second half of the Aquino presidency to prevent a repeat of the energy crisis that plagued the Philippines in the 1990s.

Schumacher said: “Government has to speed up its infrastructure build-up and ensure consistency in business policies to address the perennial worries of the business community, which are the dismal lack of infrastructure like roads and power facilities along with conflicting policies at the national and local levels that are anathema to sustainable high growth.”

In the energy sector, for instance, Schumacher said “the DOE (Department of Energy) must declare a power project at SBFZ (Subic Bay Freeport Zone) as a critical one to helping ensure stable power supply not only at this special economic zone but in the rest of Luzon as well, as a way of assuring prospective locators that their businesses will not suffer in the years ahead crippling outages that undermine productivity and competitiveness.”

A consortium is putting up an environment-friendly coal-fired plant at the Redondo Peninsula that will generate 600-MW, which will be a big step in addressing rising power demand at Freeport and the rest of Luzon.

Schumacher lamented that this important Subic project has hit a snag, though, “amid the misguided opposition by certain groups that have raised false environmental issues despite the fact that this coal-fired facility will be using state-of-the-art technology to generate power that is clean, stable and affordable.”

Government has to consider the importance of addressing the issue of a possible tight power supply in the short- and medium-term rather than pandering to noisy groups disguised as environmentalists, said Schumacher in citing the urgency of speeding up this Subic project.

Based on the DOE’s Power Development Plan for 2012-2030, the ECCP said the annual demand growth of 4.8 percent for Luzon means it will need additional capacity of 10,500 MW until 2030 or 600 MW of power every year starting 2016.