Seoul: Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (HHIC) has announced that it is to boost its original $1bn investment in its shipyard at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone by $684m, reports the Manila Standard Today. The additional funding is to be used to finance the expansion of the yard in response to the high number of vessel orders Hanjin claims to have received at Subic. The yard is scheduled to deliver 33 medium-sized container vessels worth an estimated $3bn by 2009 as well 82 large-sized containerships by 2011.
Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was present at the yard at the time of the announcement (pictured), said, "the Subic shipyard will transform Subic into one of the four largest shipbuilding facilities in the whole world." She also assured Hanjin that the government would do its best to ensure that it would be easy for foreign investors to finance projects in the Philippines.
"The difficult and politically unpopular steps we took to raise taxes are bearing fruit. We are now able to make significant investments in people and infrastructure. This includes billions of pesos in programs to promote human capital like education, health care, social services and training like the welders training centre that we put up here in Subic, TESDA and Hanjin together," she added. The training centre currently produces 1,200 trainees per batch every quarter. [28/06/07]
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