Aquino admin intends to sell shares in Subic Shipyard

The Philippine government plans to sell its stake in the Subic Shipyard and Engineering Co., a shipyard managed by Singapore-based Keppel Shipyard Ltd. On Friday, Privatization and Management Office (PMO) announced that it is offering for sale via public bidding the government's 89,622,929 common shares in Subic Shipyard. "This represents approximately 8.76 percent of the total outstanding capital stock of the company," according to PMO. PMO is presently the lead agency in the government's privatization program. On Dec. 6, 2001, ex-President Joseph Estrada created the office through Executive Order 323. Since 1986 through 2001, the privatization program was authorized by the Asset Privatization Trust (APT) under the guidance of an inter-agency Committee on Privatization (COP). The terms of APT and COP ended in 2001. PMO said the shares are offered at a "base price" of P584.7 million. Interested parties should submit "Expressions of Interest" or EOI to PMO from Jan. 6-17, the office said. PMO said it reserves the right to award the sale to the bidder whose offer is most advantageous to the government. Privatization is among the options the government eyes to plug its budget deficit. President Benigno Aquino III, who was installed into office in June, targeted to raise P2 billion from privatization last year. His predecessor, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, wanted to raise P30 billion from privatization. The government is eyeing to contain the budget gap at P290 billion this year and is hoping to have kept last year's deficit within the P325 budget ceiling. -- JE/OMG, GMANews.TV