Billionaire Enrique Razon is pushing ahead with plans to build a P20-billion ($418 million) resort in Quezon City, undeterred by President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on gambling.
The chairman and founder of Bloomberry Resorts Corp. said construction of the company’s second casino, in Quezon City in the northern part of metropolitan Manila, may start mid-next year and could be finished in 2019.
Razon’s planned resort will also include shops, a convention center and a hotel. He joins other investors building new casinos in the Philippines, including Universal Entertainment Corp. chairman Kazuo Okada, who will open a resort in Manila in November, and Andrew Tan and Lim Kok Thay, Philippine and Malaysian billionaires, who are also building a casino in the city.
Duterte’s campaign is focused on electronic gaming parlors that have been loosely regulated and could actually help companies like Bloomberry, Razon said in an interview in Manila Friday.
“I think cracking down on this, looking at it from our perspective, helps the licensed casinos,” Razon said. Bloomberry’s Solaire Resort and Casino on Manila Bay is operating at “full capacity” and there’s been an increase in visitors from China since Duterte was elected in May as the new president seeks to improve relations between the two countries, he said.
Manila is aspiring to become the next Asian casino hub as high-stakes Chinese gamblers increasingly abandon Macau amid their government’s crackdown on corruption. Chinese and South Koreans are the two biggest groups of foreign visitors at Solaire, and Duterte’s plans to upgrade the airport and open a new toll road to the area where Solaire is should be good for business, the billionaire said.
“Razon is making a bet that President Duterte will deliver on his promises on infrastructure,” said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist at BDO Unibank Inc. in Manila. “Tourism has far more to go if only we have the right infrastructure.”
Meanwhile, International Container Terminal Services Inc., the Philippine’s largest port operator led by Razon expects new terminals in Australia, Congo, Colombia and Iraq to increase the cargo it handles, boosting profit in the next five years amid a slump in global trade and limited opportunities for investment.
“I don’t really see any light at the end of the tunnel yet” for the global economy, Razon, 56, said in an interview on Sept. 16 in Manila. “These four new terminals are our spark plug for growth.”
ICTSI, which operates in more than 20 countries, saw revenue from port operations rise 11 percent to $284.3 million in the second quarter as expansion in recent years boosted volume, countering sluggish trade.