JAPANESE tycoon Kazuo Okada increased the budget for the first phase of a Philippine casino by a third to $2 billion, in return for obtaining a government extension on the delayed project in the capital city.
The total investment on the entire complex may reach about $4 billion, said Kenji Sugiyama, president at Okada’s Tiger Resort, Leisure and Entertainment Inc. The initial phase is scheduled to open in December next year, and will have two hotel towers with 1,000 rooms, 500 gaming tables, a nightclub and an outdoor beach, he said.
“Part of our vision is to be the one-stop destination,” Sugiyama said in an interview in Manila. “Once they come here, they don’t need to go out —everything is here.” The company will hire 8,000 employees for the first phase, he said.
The Okada project is among four integrated casino resorts the government wants built in the 120-hectare (297-acre) Entertainment City Complex on Manila Bay to compete with Asian neighbors Singapore and Macau for gaming revenues. Each holder of the four licenses was required to spend at least $1 billion to build luxury hotels, shops, entertainment areas and gambling floors.
Tiger Resort had sought to postpone the opening of its casino to December 2016, after it missed an earlier March 2015 deadline, as Okada encountered delays finding a local partner, which was needed to meet a cap on foreign land ownership.
Local partner
Okada’s group has partnered with local businessman Antonio Cojuangco for the Manila casino, after selling its stake in a company that controls the project’s land site to a firm owned by Cojuangco, Sugiyama said.
The national casino regulator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. said earlier this month gaming revenue could increase 20 percent this year to $3 billion, even as China’s anticorruption crackdown hurt gambling in other parts of Asia.
A 16-percent gain in first-half gaming revenue to $1.4 billion supports the outlook that the Philippines’s mix of foreign players is not dependent on China, the regulator’s chairman, Cristino Naguiat, said in a July 14 interview.
Bloomberry Resorts Corp.’s $1.2-billion Solaire Manila opened in March 2013, making it the Entertainment City’s first casino project, while Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd.’s City of Dreams Manila formally opened in February. Travellers International Hotel Group Inc. is planning to open Bayshore City Resorts World in phases starting 2019.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes