COTABATO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / May 28, 2014) – The Regional Board of Investments of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao on Wednesday said its first semester investments have reached P1.62 billion and exceeded last year’s overall registered investments of P1.46 billion.
This is after RBOI approved the Agumil Philippines, Inc.’s registration of oil palm kernel crushing plant worth P170 million in the town of Buluan in Maguindanao province.
Agumil has added to the P1.451 billion investment generated during the first quarter of this year namely Lamsan Power Corporation’s P921.56 million biomass renewable energy investment, SR Languyan Mining Corporation’s P520 million nickel ore mining project, among others.
It said Agumil Philippines is a Filipino-Malaysian company registered with RBOI since 2006 and is engaged in oil palm milling, mainly exporting its products to Malaysia. It is operating an oil palm mill with a capacity of 45 tons per hour in Buluan.
In the process of Agumil’s operation until to date, the company has accumulated a sizable amount of quality palm kernels which is enough to process into palm kernel oil and cake for animal feeds.
And this has prompted the company to construct a crushing plant also near the milling plant to make profitable use of these kernels. The crushing plant is expected to generate 500 cyclical construction workers and 54 new jobs.
Agumil, aside from being a business partner of over 6,000 oil palm out growers in Maguindanao and nearby areas, is also expected to put up a biomass power plant to support the energy needs of their milling and crushing plants within this year or early in 2015, and the excess power will be sold to the national transmission grid.
RBOI Chairman lawyer Ishak Mastura said he foresees big local companies will continue to invest in ARMM to take advantage of the positive business sentiment in the region and the relative stability brought about by the signing in March of the peace agreement or the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro between the Philippine government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels.
Mastura said: “Investors view this peace agreement as a removal of the major risk of flare-up of violent political conflict and insurgency in the region. We are bullish that investments in ARMM will exceed two billion pesos this year for the first time as a result.”
He said Agumil will be provided by RBOI with Income Tax Holidays for 6 years at the start of their commercial operations and other fiscal and non-fiscal incentives for the company’s socio-economic contributions to the development of the region.
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