RP expects $1.85b in investments

RP expects $1.85b in investments

MANILA: The Philippines is expecting as much as US$1.85 billion in new investments from South Korea, the government announced on Saturday following a visit by South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan.

Lee, who met with Philippine President Gloria Arroyo late Friday also discussed "security as well as trade issues," with her, Arroyo spokesman Ignacio Bunye said without elaborating.

Arroyo said in a statement that the Hanjin group of South Korea was establishing a "ship component manufacturing facility," in the former U.S. Subic naval base, north of Manila that will eventually become a ship-building facility with total investments of about $1 billion.

The Korea Electric Power Corp. in turn will invest about $250 million in energy projects in the central island of Cebu and will expand an existing plant in Batangas province, just south of the capital with another investment of $600 million, Arroyo added.

She did not give a timetable for these projects.

Arroyo remarked that South Koreans had become one of the top foreign tourists to this country with 400,000 South Koreans arriving last year and about half a million expected this year. -- AFP