BUSINESSMAN Manuel V. Pangilinan is exploring opportunities in agriculture as he expects the sector to play a bigger role in the country’s food supply chain.
In Friday night’s episode of The Chiefs, Mr. Pangilinan, who leads the so-called MVP Group of Companies, said he is looking to engage this week with an Israeli group that operates greenhouse facilities.
“Apparently there is an existing greenhouse operation run by Israelis, an Israeli group. So I’m meeting them next week. We should get into that situation,” he said Friday.
He noted he has been talking with Indonesian businessman Anthoni Salim about the latter’s greenhouse property in Batam Island, Indonesia. Mr. Pangilinan said Mr. Salim’s greenhouse operations in Batam Island is being used for planting vegetables that are exported to countries like Singapore.
“Sabi ko [I said], ‘That’s a very intriguing thought, because why can’t we do it here?’… I called him back, ‘Can we see the template of what you do? Because we want to replicate it here.’ Sabi niya [He said], ‘Sure’,” Mr. Pangilinan recalled from his talks with Mr. Salim.
Mr. Salim is the chairman of Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd., which controls the three Philippine firms in the MVP Group: Metro Pacific Investments Corp., PLDT Inc., and Philex Mining Corp.
Mr. Pangilinan noted his group owns a 20-hectare property in Cavite and a 27-hectare property in Bulacan, which may be used for the agriculture venture.
The Filipino businessman said he wants to have a clearer picture of what the country’s supply chain looks like and where raw materials are sourced. He mentioned talking to economists from the University of the Philippines to draw up a supply chain blueprint of the country.
“We need to understand where these raw materials, including pharmacy, are coming from. So in a situation like this, we can identify where we can substitute the current supply chain that we have from abroad,” Mr. Pangilinan said.
He said he is taking cues from Socioeconomic Planning Acting Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua on which industries would thrive in the new normal. Some of these are agriculture, food production, pharmaceuticals, telemedicine, tele-learning, e-government, e-work, e-commerce and smart cities.
“It’s a whole range of possibilities that are emerging from this crisis,” Mr. Pangilinan said, noting these opportunities are attractive to the MVP Group.
The MVP Group currently has businesses in water, power, telecommunications, healthcare, tollways, rail operations, entertainment and media. It recently took interest in logistics and hospitality as well.
Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., maintains interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Denise A. Valdez
