Monday, 05 April 2010 00:00 Manila Times
THE Board of Investments (BOI) said it would release the guidelines for the 2010 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) by the middle of the month to encourage investments aimed at addressing Mindanao’s power supply deficit.
Trade Undersecretary Elmer Hernandez last week told reporters that the BOI was instructed to come up with the 2010 IPP guidelines by mid-April, after Malacañang approved the incentives plan last month.
Among the new activities that will be granted fiscal incentives under this year’s IPP are the importation of generator sets (gensets) which would be used in Mindanao.
Genset importation would fall under the IPP’s new list providing incentives to disaster prevention, mitigation and recovery projects.
Mindanao had been placed under a state of calamity because of its power shortage.
The government had extended similar incentives to importers of gensets during the power crisis in the early 1990s.
“This incentive will be open to all industrial users in Mindanao, whether their ongoing activities are BOI-registered or not,” Hernandez, who is managing head of the incentives-giving agency, said.
He said firms in Mindanao that will import gensets would have to first register with the BOI under the agency’s one-day processing scheme. Companies will have to indicate in their application the specifications of the gensets they would purchase.
Hernandez said BOI would allow so-called “indentors” to import gensets on behalf of firms that may be unable to do so on their own, as some foreign sellers only deal with indentors.
He said only the registered company can avail of the incentive.
The registered firm would be extended duty-free importation of gensets, which are currently slapped a tariff of 1 percent.
Hernandez said the government is also looking at tapping government financial institutions such as the Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines, to help finance genset importation.
He said BOI is still working out an incentive scheme for electric cooperatives—which would be importing bigger generators—to harmonize it with the incentives currently offered under the Cooperative Development Act and National Electrification Act.
Ben Arnold O. De Vera/Manila Times
Among the new activities that will be granted fiscal incentives under this year’s IPP are the importation of generator sets (gensets) which would be used in Mindanao.
Genset importation would fall under the IPP’s new list providing incentives to disaster prevention, mitigation and recovery projects.
Mindanao had been placed under a state of calamity because of its power shortage.
The government had extended similar incentives to importers of gensets during the power crisis in the early 1990s.
“This incentive will be open to all industrial users in Mindanao, whether their ongoing activities are BOI-registered or not,” Hernandez, who is managing head of the incentives-giving agency, said.
He said firms in Mindanao that will import gensets would have to first register with the BOI under the agency’s one-day processing scheme. Companies will have to indicate in their application the specifications of the gensets they would purchase.
Hernandez said BOI would allow so-called “indentors” to import gensets on behalf of firms that may be unable to do so on their own, as some foreign sellers only deal with indentors.
He said only the registered company can avail of the incentive.
The registered firm would be extended duty-free importation of gensets, which are currently slapped a tariff of 1 percent.
Hernandez said the government is also looking at tapping government financial institutions such as the Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines, to help finance genset importation.
He said BOI is still working out an incentive scheme for electric cooperatives—which would be importing bigger generators—to harmonize it with the incentives currently offered under the Cooperative Development Act and National Electrification Act.
Ben Arnold O. De Vera/Manila Times
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