Mariwasa Siam Ceramics Inc., the biggest ceramic tile-manufacturing company in the Philippines, is upbeat that it will have a decisive finish in 2008.

Surasak Kraiwitchaicharoen, Mariwasa president, expects its net profit by the end of the year to reach P30 million from P20 million in the previous year.

Likewise, the company’s targeted sales revenue by the end of this year is P2 billion from P1.8 billion a year earlier.

“There is a growing demand for ceramic floor and wall tiles because of the property boom. Through sustained innovation, we can achieve our target numbers,” said Kraiwitchaicharoen.

As a formula of long-term competitiveness in the industry, Mariwasa will invest P31 million in research and development. The investment is made in line with the company’s policy of placing premium on the production of quality tiles, said the executive.

Mariwasa has come up with almost 100 new designs of its products to meet the changing demands of the domestic and export markets. Kraiwitchaicharoen was referring to ceramic tiles that are resistant to common household stains and to breaking.

Last year, the market share of Mariwasa in the local ceramic tile manufacturing was 27 percent from 50 percent a decade ago.

For one, Kraiwitchaicharoen attributed the company’s dipping market share to the growing number of competitors, like Eurotiles, Tenzen, Lepanto and China.

“Also, it’s because of spiraling energy and power costs,” said Kraiwitchaicharoen, assuring that it will improve its energy-efficiency records in the coming years.

“Power is considered as one of the major costs incurred by tile manufacturers,” he added.

The executive said Mariwasa, which sits on a 24-hectare land in Santo Tomas, Batangas, will continue to search for alternative fuels. “We have to go upbeat on that matter.”

With Mariwasa’s increasing competition posed by manufacturers based in China, Kraiwitchaicharoen said the firm is trying to sustain itself.

The safeguard duty is now pegged at P2 a kilogram for imported tiles this year. This amount will gradually decline by 2011.

The Philippine government first imposed the tariff-rate quota and the safeguard duty in 2002, after it determined that the influx of imported ceramic tiles from China has caused injury to local manufacturers.

Consumers, particularly those in the Visayas and Mindanao, should brace themselves for higher prices of pork products due to the tightness in local supply.

CANBERRA’S Australian Agency for International Development (Ausaid) has extended a grant of $800,000 (P32 million) for the second phase of a project to totally eradicate foot and mouth disease (FMD) among hogs in the Philippines.

LEGAZPI CITY—Despite reeling from the effects of past and recent disasters, Albay province remains steadfast in reclaiming the glory of being one of the country’s leading coconut producers by planting 15 million new coco trees on a 150,000-hectare plantation by 2010.

PALAUIG, Zambales—The government is stepping up effort to turn idle and what used to be unproductive agricultural lands of this town into a major food producer, with the introduction of off-season vegetable production.

CANDELARIA, Zambales—A couple from this sleepy agricultural town is now trailblazing the way to how to become successful agribusinessmen from being “landless” farmers.

Mariwasa Siam Ceramics Inc., the biggest ceramic tile-manufacturing company in the Philippines, is upbeat that it will have a decisive finish in 2008.

TARGETING to institutionalize the local natural-gas industry, the Department of Energy (DOE) has entered into an agreement with the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) for the development of a mechanism for organizing the Philippine Natural Gas Institute.