The Board of Investments has approved eight projects with combined investments of P1.66 billion including five low-cost mass housing projects which continued to receive tax and fiscal incentives and mostly dominate the number of projects registered with this premier government investment generating agency.

Based on the BoI approvals, the biggest project is the P615 million project of Phoenix Petroleum Philippines Inc. for the establishment of a petroleum storage facility with distribution and marketing operations in barangay Salong, Calaca, Batangas.

The Filipino-owned Phoenix has already started constructing five storage tanks with storage capacity of 46 million liters of petroleum products.

Phoenix is going to source its products from foreign oil companies and independent suppliers like Singapore Petroleum Corp., Oronite Singapore, Petronas Malaysia and Formosa Petroleum Taiwan.

It will engage in bulk marketing and selling of petroleum products on a wholesale basis to retail stations in Luzon and industrial users in the CALABARZON and Metro Manila areas.

This is the firm’s second project of Phoenix that is registered with the BoI, the first one being in Sasa, Davao City.

The project will start commercial operation next month employing 20 people.

The BoI has also approved A. Philippine Hydro (PH), Inc. for its P120 million project that would put up a water filtration and treatment facility.

The company has proposed to install a 10-kilomter pipeline which will supply bulk clean potable water to the Norzagaray Water District (NORWD), a government-owned entity which will in turn serve around 38,000 customers in four barangays in Norzagaray, Bulacan.

PH has entered into a bulk water supply agreement with NORWD in October 2008.

The project will start in January 2010 with 19 workers. PH is majority-owned by Spring Side Aqua Systems Inc. and Danilo Tan.

The BoI also approved the P59.49 million project of Philippines Auto Components Inc. for the production of instrument clusters pointer assembly at 4 million pieces annually.

This wholly-owned Japanese-Singaporean-woend company, one of the largest auto parts firms in the country, would be expanding its existing facility in Carmelray Industrial Park in Canlubang, Calamba, Laguna.
This firm’s eighth project to be registered with the BoI with the previous registrations centering on instrument clusters, related parts and other automotive parts as well.

The autoparts will be exported to Japan, China and Spain and will be used for the instrument clusters of Corolla, Camry, Yaris and Vitz, Toyota’s global model cars.

PACI is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Denso Singapore which is turn is owned by Denso Corp., one of the world’s largest automotive parts makers and one of the main suppliers of Toyota cars.

The firm will start production on July 2010 with additional employment of 17 people.

The five other projects, all low cost mass housing ventures, approved by the BoI were Shelter Systems Development Corp. (P70.253 million), Fifth Avenue Property Development Corp. (P189 million), Federal Land Inc. (P279 million), Communities Isabela Inc. (P232.396 million) and Household Development Corp. (P97 million).

These projects have combined cost of P867.64 million with jobs generation of 934 people.