PH offering 500 hectares in New Clark City to Chinese firms

The state-run Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) is eyeing to allot 300-500 hectares (ha) of land within the soon-to-rise New Clark City for a planned industrial park hosting Chinese locators.

BCDA president and chief executive Vivencio B. Dizon told reporters last week that the Chinese side initially sought to build on 1,000 ha, which would be impossible given the terrain.

Dizon said the Philippine and Chinese governments were expected to sign the agreement to build the industrial park in November, when China’s President Xi Jinping visits the Philippines.

The BCDA would have to subsequently issue within six months a blueprint aligned with the New Clark City’s master plan, Dizon said.

“Industrial parks have to be contiguous and flat, so that has to be [planned] jointly with the BCDA,” Dizon explained.

Construction of the industrial park would start by late next year, he said. Chinese investments in mostly light and medium industries were expected to come in once the industrial park is finished.

“The deal is they [the Chinese] develop, and they also are the ones to bring in [investors]—it’s a package deal,” according to Dizon.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said car factories, robotics-assembly plants and semiconductor facilities, laboratories and training facilities could be hosted within the Chinese-led industrial park.

Dominguez said putting up an industrial park housing Chinese investors was “a very good move for us” since their operations could serve as a regional base given the free trade regime within Asean.

Dominguez said it helped that the sprawling land was government property, hence easier to develop with the Chinese.

“That’s all our land, so there’s no issue of buying land. That’s how the industrial parks here were developed—the private sector bought land, and it took them a long time. So in our case, it’s already there—there are no issues on right of way, and it’s our land. It’s government land so we develop it, it gets enhanced and it becomes your asset,” Dominguez said.