Asia: 8% growth; USA: 0
Why is it that much of
Merrill Lynch International Bank private wealth officials, led by managing director of investments, Singaporean-born Michelle Tham, Cebu-born Michael Go and Dudo Vaca, recently introduced some top American bankers and economists who told this writer that “Asia will have average economic growth of eight percent this year, even if the US economy has zero growth.”
Instead of being worried by
I believe that the torch of leadership in the world economy is now in our hands this year, with the US$10 billion Beijing Olympics and
To her credit, politically unpopular but resolute former economics professor President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo seems to be the most ideal strong leader for the Philippine economy in these troubling times of gut-wrenching international flux. Let us invest more!
* * *
Want proof of strong Philippine economic growth? The Philippine STAR’s advertising head Lucien Dy Tioco told this writer that the STAR is the only broadsheet newspaper that registered double-digit advertising revenue growth in 2007, with a sizzling 20 percent, while the average growth for the other top-three newspapers was eight percent.
PS Bank president Pascual Garcia III and EVP Rolly Rodriguez recently told me that their bank, a subsidiary of the Metrobank Group, registered a record P1 billion net profit in 2007 and they are targeting 15-percent growth this year.
* * *
Want proof of confidence in continuing Philippine economic growth? The Lucio Tan Group will soon announce its ambitious multi-billion-peso development of a new high-end, Eastwood-style project on its prime 10-hectare property at the corner of
* * *
Not only is the torch of the Olympics and of world economic leadership passing from the West to resurgent Asia, some of the old-rich families of Philippine business are giving way to the rise of new entrepreneurs with seemingly more ambitions and a bold, risk-taking spirit. The new immigrants are also bullish about Philippine economic growth in a breathtaking way.
In the last few months, three big former sawmill properties of once prominent colonial-era lumber clans have been sold one after another to new Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs:
• The final portions of pre-war “Lumber King” Dee C. Chuan’s 1.3-hectare lumberyard along Soler Street corner Claro M. Recto Avenue (formerly Calle Azcarraga, when the young lumber scion bought his property in 1908 to separate his business from that of his lumber tycoon uncle Dy Pac) were recently sold to 168 Mall, led by rags-to-riches industrialist Basilio Tan, and will become mall expansion and two new condominium towers;
• Dee C. Chuan’s second cousin Lee Tay family’s once nearly five-hectare Lee Tay & Lee Chay, Inc. and Alaska Lumber compound in Juan Luna Street in the Tondo district (back to back with this compound was the former eight-hectare Philippine Lumber Manufucturing Corp. of Dee C. Chuan in Tondo, which has also reportedly been sold off in different parts by his heirs).
Also on Manila’s T. Alonzo Street, a big chunk of the 19th-century Dy Han Kia lumberyard (well-known in Spanish and US colonial times by the Chinese corporate name “Guan Goc” and also in English as the prewar Lee Tay & Lee Chay sawmill) also ended up with a new immigrant a few years ago, who built a condominium there across Ling Nam noodle house.
• The recent sale of five parcels of land comprising the colonial-era Ongpin Street lumberyard of prewar lumber tycoon Vicente Gotamco by his heirs to publicly listed developer Anchor Land Holdings, Inc., headed by rags-to-riches immigrant Stephen Lee and his Canada-educated cousin, Steve Li. New condominium projects will rise there. Henry Sy’s SM Group is an investor in
Another prewar taipan’s heirs have ceded their property to a new immigrant taipan. The third-generation mestizo heirs of the late La Tondeña distillery founder and “Alcohol King” Carlos Palanca (with Chinese name Tan Guinlay, different from and often confused with that of his baptismal godfather, the 19th-century immigrant taipan Carlos Palanca Tan Quien Sien) have recently agreed to have their Makati building along Carlos Palanca Jr. Street in Legaspi Village developed as the Greenbelt Chancellor condominium in a joint venture with new immigrant rags-to-riches taipan and Megaworld founder Andrew Tan. The old La Tondeña property along
Some of the data on the Dee C. Chuan, Lee Tay & Lee Chay and Gotamco properties’ sale was told to me by 86-year-old Elisa Velasco Lipio, daughter of prewar taipan Jose Velasco Chua and aunt of the late Philippine STAR founder Betty Velasco Go Belmonte. This writer is a grandson of Lee Tay and a great-great-grandson of Dy Han Kia.
Coincidentally, prewar taipans Dee C. Chuan, Jose Velasco Vicente Gotamco and Carlos Palanca were among the original founders and top investors in 1920 of pioneering China Banking Corporation, which is now controlled by former borrower and new immigrant taipan of all taipans Henry Sy. The post-World War II Equitable Bank, founded by immigrant Go Kim Pah with prewar lumber tycoon Eduardo Coseteng as its first chairman, has since also been acquired by former borrower, rags-to-riches billionaire Henry Sy, and has now been merged with his family’s BDO by daughter Teresita “Tessie” Sy-Coson.
Nothing on earth is permanent; the fortunes of business and politics are perpetually in flux. New kings and taipans shall rise in every new generation, and nothing is impossible for those who dream and are willing to pay the price of hard work to achieve their dreams. The only constant in this exciting world is the bewildering force of non-stop change. With the US economy possibly going into a recession, watch out for the rise of China-led Asia, which includes the Philippines, if we respond to this new world order with courage, resilience, efficiency and bold creativity!
* * *
Thanks for your messages. Comments/suggestions welcome at willsoonflourish@gmail.com or wilson_lee_flores@yahoo.com.
