CLARK FREEEPORT — Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) has not only began the transformation of this former US military base but continues to make it as Southeast Asia’s most important economic hub.
Twenty-five years after its inception, the CDC has transformed Clark into what it is today – a modern airport- driven industrial estate and urban center.
Home to high-end, IT-enabled industries, aviation and logistics related enterprises, tourism and other freeport-related projects strategically located in the center of Luzon and in the heart of the region.
From a mere five investors in 1993, Clark now has 949 locators with a total of $6.876 billion in exports as of December 2017 and a growing workforce that has already breached the 100,000 mark.
It can be recaled that in the not so distant past, Clark appeared like a desert of ash and debris after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991 and the eventual withrawal of US military bases in the Philippines in November of the same year.
All seemed lost after Clark was abandoned by the Americans and almost destroyed by tons of volcanic debris until the inception of the Clark Development Corp. on April 20, 1993 which ignited a flicker of hope.
Mandated to transform and develop the former US military base into a thriving economic and industrial estate, CDC began the arduous task of transforming Clark into what its is today.
Through the years, CDC has become one of the highest-earning government owned and controlled corporation (GOCC) in the country by steering Clark into a special economic zone and now as a a freeport.
Breaching billion net
Testament to CDC’s success is having been able to breach the billion-peso net income level for a single year. In 2017, CDC reached an unprecedented net income of P1.03 billion and made Clark as one of the major investment center in the country and Souteast Asia. The figure is a 32 percent increase from its 2016 net income of P783 million.
Records showed that from 1993 to 2016, CDC was able to remit cash dividends of more than P2.55 billion to the National Treasury.
In a recent report to the CDC Board of Directors, President Noel F. Manankil said the net income for 2017 alone represented 27 percent of the P3.801 billion income generated for the first 24 years of CDC’s operations.
Manankil attributed the unprecedented financial performance of CDC to the support of locators, investors, the national leadership, the Bases Conversion and Develop0ment Authority (BCDA), the CDC Board and other stakeholders of Clark.
He said CDC posted a 20 percent growth in its gross revenues for 2017, earning P1.98 billion as compared to 1.64 billion in 2016. CDC had a total revenue collection of P16.37 billion from 1993 to 2016.
For this year, growth on export value inside the freeport has surged to $6.87 billion, a 35 percent rise from end of 2016 which was recorded at $5.08 billion.
While citing the increase of the export volume, Manankil also noted a growth in the number of locators. At present, there are 949 locator-firms in Clark.
Some of the locators include industry leaders and renown global companies like Yokohama Tires Philippines, Inc., Texas Instruments, SFA Semicon, Nanox, Premier Central Inc (SM City Clark), Foton, Mercedes Benz and BBI among others.
With the addition of 54 locators at the end of 2017, employees inside the freeport also reached more than 108,000 workers as compared to only less that 20,000 workers during the 88 years under the US 13th Air Force from 1903 to 1991.
Committed to its mission of creating more productive economic activities, CDC, in commemoration of its 25 years, vowed to continue generating employment and investments for the country.
Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes of a catastrophic volcanic eruption and destruction, the CDC has successfully transformed an abandoned US military base buried under tons of ash into the billion-peso income generating economic behemoth that it is now today.
