By Iris C. Gonzales (The
Philippine Star) | Updated July 15, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - Aboitiz Equity
Ventures Inc. (AEV) expects its business to continue to grow under the
administration of President Duterte despite an expected crackdown against
coal-fired power plants.
“We’re very positive with the
current administration. You can see the optimism in the air. I think so far,
it’s been very encouraging. They really want to get things done as soon as
possible,” said Erramon Aboitiz, president and CEO of AEV.
Aboitiz said the conglomerate would
also continue to participate in countryside development.
“As far as countryside development
is concerned, our businesses are really there. We rely on a lot of rural
development and we deal with rural people for food and our feed business. And
even our power business, we’re in Davao, we’re in Cotabato, we’re in less urban
places,” Aboitiz said.
Asked about prospects for the
company’s power business with staunch environmentalist Gina Lopez at the helm
of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Aboitiz said they would
continue to discuss the issue with the new administration.
“This is something we have to
deal with. Perhaps hopefully, we can show that the coal of today is much
different than the coal of tomorrow. We have modern technologies and we have
modern practices. if you go to our Davao plant, you don’t see smoke.
The realization is that coal of
today is not anymore the coal of the past. While it is still not cheap, we
cannot totally rely on renewables. It’s expensive. I believe that we should try
to combine the different technologies and by doing that achieve some sort of a
balance and together it possibly might work. I don’t think we can say that the
thing of tomorrow is not going to be coal,” Aboitiz said.
He said the bigger worry for the
government and industry is how to sustain power supply on the back of a growing
economy.
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