SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority posted P240.21 million in net income for the first five months of 2017, up by more than 126 percent from the same period last year, SBMA Administrator Wilma Eisma said Tuesday.
This was part of the “good news (that) kept coming out of the Subic Bay Freeport in the first half of this year,” as the SBMA reported continuing growth in revenue, dividends, investments, exports and tourism, Eisma said in her report to President Rodrigo Duterte ahead of his second State of the Nation Address on July 24.
The SBMA “indicated increases in all aspects of its performance from January to May this year,” Eisma said.
She said the agency recorded a 7.7 percent growth in revenue, from a total of P1.16 billion in the first five months last year to P1.25 billion in January-May 2017, and a 3.4-percent increase in operating income for the same period.
“Apparently”•and this cannot be denied”•the SBMA has continued well in its growth path in the last few years and we are actually breaking records here,” she added.
Eisma also said that because of the upsurge in its financial performance, the SBMA has managed to contribute bigger shares to the government than ever before.
This includes a 30.58-percent increase in the revenue shares to local government units that went from P115.22 million in the first half last year to P150.46 million this year; and a 30.42-percent increase in the government’s three-percent share from the gross income earned in the Subic Bay Freeport, which rose from P178.37 million in January to May 2016 to P232.63 million in the same period in 2017.
Untill, the dividends paid by the SBMA to the national government through the Bureau of Treasury, Eisma added, reached a huge 352.7 percent increase, as actual remittances grew from P145.91 million to P660.69 million.
Eisma said the favorable financial picture in Subic also extended to new investment commitments, which surged by 642 percent from P5.6 billion in January to May 2016, to P40.55 billion in January-May 2017.
Likewise, the number of new business locators grew by 58, bringing the total number of Subic-registered businesses to 1,527, while expansion projects of existing locators jumped by 85 percent, or from 13 last year to 24 this year.
“The huge increase in new investment commitments is due primarily to the approval of the investment project of Dynamic Konstruk International Eco Builders Corp. (DKIEBC), which amounts to P39.92 billion,” Eisma explained.
DKIEBC will engage in general construction, renewable energy and industrial hub development at the Rodondo Peninsula, with projected employment ranging from a minimum of 10,000 to a maximum of 50,000.
Eisma said other major business developments in Subic this year included the soft opening of Datian Subic Corp.’s shoe factory, which now employs 1,000 workers; the ground-breaking of Toyota Subic, Inc.’s P150-million multi-level showroom and service center; the start of Teekay Swan’s and JOVO’s ship-to-ship transfer operations with an expected annual port revenue of P200 million; and the start of DM Leisure Corp.’s P4.6-billion golf course and leisure complex project.
The SBMA also gave a positive report on tourism, with a 1 percent increase in visitor arrivals and a 3 percent growth in actual revenues that stood at P10.54 million in January-May 2017.
Relative to tourism, Eisma also reported that the Subic Bay Freeport became the first free port zone in the country to have declared non-smoking zones in compliance with President Duterte’s EO 26 that called for the establishment of smoke-free environments in public and enclosed places.