Making the country great

Despite a few brickbats thrown his way by some government agencies and officials, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) president Ramon S. Ang remains steadfast in his resolve to bring in more businesses, create new jobs, alleviate poverty in the country, and make the country great, to borrow his words.

And as a new decade is about to begin, RSA is excited with the scheduled groundbreaking of one of his biggest projects to date, the New Manila International Airport in Bulacan, middle of January, as well as the many new businesses and opportunities that it will create not only for the SMC group, but for the country in general.

Last September, the Department of Transportation and SMC’s San Miguel Aerocity Inc. signed the 50-year concession agreement for the $15-billion megaproject which will have four runways, eight taxiways, and three passenger terminals with an annual capacity of at least 100 million, or three times the design capacity of the single-runway Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The airport will be built at no cost to government.

Due to the huge potential of the project, RSA revealed that they have received offers from “super big groups” to invest. Among the early birds who have expressed interest in having a stake in the project are Japan Bank for International Corporation (JBIC) president Tadashi Maeda and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles chairman John Elkann.

RSA clarified that he hasn’t invited anybody yet to invest or be part of the project because he wants the groundbreaking to happen first. But he revealed that among those who he can invite are the sovereign funds of Malaysia and Singapore, the tycoons of Hongkong, Singapore and India, to name a few. “If they invest, that is foreign direct investment that will strengthen our country’s balance sheet,” he said over lunch.

Once the new airport is already up and running, he said that one of the new businesses that the SMC group can look into is an airline company. It will be recalled that San Miguel bought 49 percent of PAL Holdings, parent company of flag carrier Philippine Airlines, in 2012 but sold it back to the Lucio Tan group in 2014.

Revealing that he has been offered one local airline, RSA said that it would make more business sense to just put up a new one.

Asked about his to do list, RSA stressed that his first priority is to create a solution to the country’s worsening traffic problem, followed by finishing the expansion of his organic businesses like beer, food, power, tollway, fuel, to name a few.

Skyway Stage 3, the 24-kilometer elevated expressway from Buendia in Makati City to Balintawak in Quezon City, may be delayed to June 30 next year after contractor DMCI discovered more water and oil pipes in the Pandacan area which may have to be removed. Once completed, the 10-lane expressway will reduce travel time from Buendia to Balintawak from the current two hours to only 15 to 20 minutes and the whole stretch of EDSA, around 30 minutes.

RSA also revealed last Thursday that they have won the bidding for the Shell oil terminal in Pandacan which he plans to convert into a central bus hub.

As for Petron Corp., he said that $5 billion would be spent for capital expenditure next year to complete the $15-billion three-year network expansion and refinery improvement project.

Meanwhile, Metro Rail Transit System Line 7 project, the 23-km line that will link San Jose del Monte in Bulacan to North Avenue in Quezon City, is already more than 50 percent complete. Once finished by 2022, or if RSA will have his way, by 2021, MRT 7 will cut travel time from Manila to Bulacan from two hours to 34 minutes. It is expected to serve at least 350,000 passengers a day.

As for SMC’s food business, RSA said they are increasing capacity for pork and poultry processing by three times.

With SMC’s total revenues expected to reach P1.1 trillion by the end of this year, slightly higher than the P1.02 trillion in 2018, San Miguel’s top executive emphasized that what is more important is the fact that whatever income they make, they reinvest in businesses in the country. “All our earnings, we invest in the Philippines again. All these projects, we undertake to make our country great,” RSA pointed out.

For comments, e-mail at [email protected].