Sual Mayor Arcinue hails ‘excellent’ ties between SoKor , Ph

SUAL, Pangasinan –The meeting between South Korea President Moon Jae-in and President Rodrigo Duterte during the recent Asean Summit in Manila was a welcome development for the people here, according to Mayor Roberto Arcinue.

TIES - South Korea President Moon Jae-in and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

During his bilateral encounter with President Moon, President Duterte urged South Korea to invest more in the Philippines, particularly in electronics, energy, manufacturing, automotive, agribusiness, and food processing.

President Moon responded by saying the Philippines is “very special” to South Korea.

“I wish to further strengthen our ties with the Philippines, our long-time friend,” Moon said.

Mayor Arcinue said that this cordial and warm relationship between the two leaders should increase the chances for the establishment here of another state-of-the-art coal-fired power plant by a multi-national company from South Korea.

The company intends to invest roughly two-billion United States dollars for the planned power facility that would produce 1,000 megawatts to help address the country’s growing demand for energy.

With the construction of another power plant, hundreds of this first class town residents would be given jobs like the one provided for by the existing Sual Power Station, Arcinue said.

The mayor explained that the municipality has an ordinance requiring investors in Sual to give priority to local residents in hiring workers and office employees.

With the revenues to be collected from the second power plant, the municipal government would be able to pursue more projects like opening of the town hospital, development of an international seaport, construction of more farm-to-market roads and other infrastructure projects, livelihood opportunities for the barangay folk, construction of more classrooms, modernization of agriculture, development of housing project for informal dwellers, and many more, he said.

He said the municipality is expecting to collect hundreds of millions of pesos of real property and business taxes from the new power facility.

“We will also ask the operators of the new power plant to provide continuous power supply to our people in Sual at discounted rates as special privileges for the opportunity to put up their facility in our town,” Arcinue said.

This burgeoning town is endowed with a deep harbour that makes it uniquely ideal among all other towns in Pangasinan for the establishment of big-ticket investments like power generation, ship building and repair, international seaport, and refineries.

The provincial government headed by Governor Amado I. Espino III has identified this Western Pangasinan municipality through a resolution passed by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan in November last year as Pangasinan’s future “Energy City.”