LIMA Estate targets to double land footprint in next 10 years 

ABOITIZ InfraCapital, Inc.’s LIMA Estate in Batangas province is targeting to double its land footprint in the next 10 years, a company official said.

Rafael Fernandez De Mesa, LIMA Land, Inc. president, told reporters in an interview on Wednesday that the company is planning to expand from its current 800 hectares in Lipa and Malvar, Batangas.

He said that LIMA Estate, which is a registered ecozone with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), currently has 140 locators, which include Yamaha, Epson, Bandai, and Hitachi Cable.

Mr. De Mesa said the estate’s primary use is for the industrial sector, which he described as a catalyst for what the ecozone is today.

“From that catalyst, we’ve added complimentary components such as residential subdivisions [and] commercial developments in our central business district where you have lifestyle and basic necessities offerings,” he said.

The ecozone’s current locators are companies from Japan, the United States, Taiwan, and China, he said. “There are also some Filipino companies,” he added.

Mr. De Mesa said an expansion spanning 150 hectares is ongoing within LIMA Estate. He said the estate has around 65,000 employees, with the headcount projected to increase to about 100,000 by the end of the decade.

“We just completed 50 hectares of that [150-hectare expansion],” he said. “In our newest 50-hectare expansion, we’ve begun to sell that already and we already have reservations. And beyond that, the next phase of expansion will start early next year and we’ll begin to open that to the market as well.”

He said the locators had finished constructing on their land, which they do not buy “to hold on to.”

“Their real intention is to develop right away. And those are the types of businesses we want to attract because ultimately what we want to do is help the nation with investment and create jobs,” he added.

According to Mr. De Mesa, the primary locators of LIMA Estate are exporters, while some are into manufacturing for the domestic market.

He described the locators as generally in the light to medium industries or manufacturing. Some are makers of printers, projectors, and scanners, while others are in the automotive industry.

“They’re part of the supply chain,” Mr. De Mesa said.

LIMA Land is managed by Aboitiz InfraCapital, which is under the Aboitiz group of companies. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave