MORE gives Iloilo City economy a P5-B bump

ILOILO CITY—Enrique Razon Jr.-led MORE Electric and Power Corp. has contributed P5 billion annually to Iloilo City’s gross domestic product (GDP) on the back of the company’s growing customer base, a university professor said on Thursday.

According to Winston Padojinog, economist and president of the University of Asia and the Pacific who led a study on Iloilo’s economic landscape, this accounts for 3.8 percent of the city’s total economy.

“On the average, [MORE Power] creates 2,200 jobs every year. You could see that a reliable utility infrastructure will have reverberating effects on the economy,” Padojinog said on the sidelines of a business summit in Iloilo.

Since its 25-year franchise was signed in 2019, MORE Power has increased its customer base from 74,196 to 90,692, company data show.

Eighty-five percent of the total is composed of residential customers, while the rest are commercial, said MORE Power president and chief executive officer Roel Castro.

The significant increase in the number of customers has likewise resulted in higher operational revenues that contributed to the improvement of the city’s economy, he added.

READ: MORE Power returns more bill deposits to Iloilo customers

Meanwhile, Padojinog pointed out that utility providers allowed better economic activity. In the case of MORE Power, he explained that the company helped link industries together to drive economic growth.

“It provides a link to facilitate efficient movement of economic activity. There are forward and backward linkages but MORE Power is in the middle. It is linking other industries,” Padojinog said.

Improving efficiency

At present, he explained that 64.6 percent of MORE Power’s output contributed to the city’s service and manufacturing industries, helping improve overall efficiency.

MORE Power likewise emphasized that the reduction in system losses provided consumers extra income. In turn, Padojinog said customers injected P1.01 million in the city economy through additional consumption spending last year.

READ: Razon company invests P2.1B to boost Iloilo power supply

“These combined economic effects played a crucial role in helping Iloilo City reduce its GDP decline by 2.4 percent during the height of the pandemic in 2021,” MORE Power said.

The company is working on expanding its services to Negros Island through a proposed joint venture agreement with Central Negros Electric Cooperative. This agreement is currently pending in Congress.

Castro previously announced that they wanted to spend P2.1 billion to improve service reliability in Negros, which he said had an “inefficient” distribution system.