Floirendo-owned industrial park eyes Japanese locators

DAVAO CITY—The Floirendo-owned Damosa Land Inc. (DLI) is enticing more Japanese investors to locate in the 63-hectare industrial park that the company operates in Panabo, Davao del Norte.

DLI head Ricardo Lagdameo told visiting Japanese investors here that DLI’s Anflo Industrial Estate (AIE) was the only industrial park in the Davao region furnished with necessary support facilities for manufacturing, warehousing, processing and export.

He said the facility was also complete with world-class water and power systems and offered large spaces to locators.

A group of visiting Japanese investors, part of the 150-man delegation from different Japanese companies in Davao for the three-day Davao Japanese community event here, visited the industrial park on Oct. 4 to explore the possibility of locating and setting up their operations here.

AIE’s latest locator, Packwell Inc., a Japanese company that manufactured paper-based packaging and containers in three large packaging factories in Japan and another one in Shanghai, China, recently signed an agreement with DLI for a 1.6-hectare lot for its production facility.

Lagdameo said construction of the building had been scheduled to start next year.

He said he was confident that Packwell Inc.’s decision to put up shop at the industrial hub might entice other Japanese companies to follow suit.

“Hopefully it (Packwell) will spur more interest,” he said. Aside from Packwell Inc., AIE hosts 14 other locators, both local and international, in the agro-industrial hub.

Most of the locators are into manufacturing, Lagdameo said.

Lagdameo said they preferred manufacturing companies because AIE is inside the Philippine Export Zone Authority (Peza) area primarily focused on manufacturing and exports.

Japanese Consul General Yoshiaki Miwa, who graced the business seminar here, said manufacturing would be the next big thing in Davao City, with several Japanese manufacturing firms interested to venture into the city.

“Manufacturing has a very wide range. We can start at a level that will match the level of industry in the city. We just have to create a strategy,” Yoshiaki said.

AIE’s first phase covers a 22-hectare area offering both built-in warehouses for lease and lots for acquisition to potential investors.

Of the 15 readymade, built-in warehouses in the first phase, 13 have already been taken.

He said DLI would build 10 more warehouses to accommodate more locators.

Aside from Packwell Inc., other locators at the Floirendo-owned industrial hub included Davao Zhenzhi Plastics Corp., Manly Plastics, Inc., First Panabo Tropical Foods, Del Monte Philippines, PhilDutch, Polymer, Inc., Lane Holdings, Inc. Fermon Corp. Southern Harvest, Connovate, Davao International Container Terminal, Davao Packaging Corp., Cameco Realty and Development Corp., and Pacific Manufacturing Resources.

The hub’s second phase will feature a two-story commercial building, the upper portion of which will house offices and a cold storage facility.

Lagdameo said the commercial park portion of the AIE would house restaurants, coffee shops and other related facilities to cater to the needs of investors in the area.

The cold storage facility will be housed in one of the warehouses.

He said more warehouses would also be built depending on the demand of interested investors.

He said the entire industrial park would be completed between 2020 and 2021 and expected to generate a total of 6,000 jobs.

He said DLI was keen on getting more firms to locate at the AIE as capital continued to flow into the Davao region, which last year alone already captured a total of P17.2 billion worth of investments.

“Right now we are the only operational industrial park in the region,” Lagdameo said. “We’re lucky because when investors ask about an area where they can do manufacturing, we’re on top of their mind, “ Lagdameo said.