By Henry Empeño / Correspondent
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—The Subic Bay Freeport emerged as overall winner for Asia in the Global Free Zones of the Year 2015 awards given out by fDi Magazine, a publication of The Financial Times of London.
According to Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman Roberto Garcia, Subic bested other free port zones from a field of 76 entries to win two major awards this year: overall winner in Asia, and overall winner in the subregion of South and Southeast Asia.
The Subic free port also received bespoke awards or commendations for infrastructure developments and reinvestment in the competition that sought to acknowledge the most promising free zones across the world.
Garcia said the awards underscore the free port’s attractiveness and potential as an investment site and validates the strategies that the Subic agency has undertaken to spur the zone toward further growth.
“This is a great honor for the SBMA since this is the first time for a Philippine free port to win these major awards,” Garcia said in a media briefing on Monday.
“Emerging as overall winner in Asia, as well as in South and Southeast Asia, is a significant indicator of Subic Freeport’s level of competitiveness among other zones in the region,” Garcia said.
“These awards also mean that we’re on the right track and doing the right thing, and exerting our best effort as a team,” he added.
The awards are based on surveys conducted by fDi Magazine, an 11-year-old bi-monthly publication which provides up-to-date review of global investment activity to corporate and crossborder investment professionals across the world.
The surveys asked free zones, government entities, and investment-promotion bodies to detail their zone’s attractiveness, facilities and incentives offered to investors.
Garcia said the survey included questions on growth performance measures for 2013 and 2014; existence of multinational companies in the zone; recent expansion by tenants in the zone; initiatives to increase tenant numbers; infrastructure developments or facilities upgrades in the last 12 months; and major development plans to facilitate future expansion.
He said it was a good thing that the SBMA had effected increases across all sectors, thereby putting up an image of outstanding overall performance in the free port.
The SBMA official pointed out that the financial turnaround that his administration has undertaken in the last three years augured well for the Subic agency in the competition, as judges took into consideration a free port’s performance in terms of revenue growth, investment level and employment generation, among others.
Garcia added that the presence of major multinational firms here like Hanjin and Philip Morris has established Subic as a major foreign investment site.
The annual fDi Free Zones of the Year Awards is regarded as an indication of the capabilities of key cities and regions for attracting future inward investment.
Last year the award for Large Tenants in the Asia category went out to Sri City in India, which was home to 30 tenants in 2013, such as US-based West Pharma and Thailand-based Rockworth, while Daegu Gyeongbuk in South Korea won in the SME Asia category after experiencing a 23 percent annual increase in tenant numbers in 2013.
Clark Freeport, meanwhile, received a bespoke award that year for reducing red tape and shifting from a “regulatory” to a “business enhancement” mind-set.
Garcia said it was the first time for Subic to join the competition.