Concepcion Industrial bullish on prospects in Philippine property sector

MANILA, Philippines - “The best way to evaluate the performance of the Philippine property sector is by the number of tower cranes rising all over the country.”

This is how Rajan Komarasu, group director of Concepcion Building and Industrial Solutions (BIS), a unit of publicly-listed Concepcion Industrial Corp., illustrates how the robust development in the property sector has fueled the country’s strong economic growth.

In fact, Philippine Statistics Authority figures show the amount of floor space released for construction in the first half of 2015 11 percent to 13 million square meters from the past year. “Construction projects increased across the residential, office, commercial, and manufacturing sectors,” said Komarasu.

In the first half of 2015, floor spaces up for construction into offices grew 72 percent to 1.6 million square meters completed by 2018 to 2020.

“Demand are coming from various industries, but the IT-BPO sector shows the highest demand for more office space,” he added.

Concepcion BIS has been working on a pipeline of projects worth over P10 billion up to 2018: building solutions—from heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) to escalators and elevators—to consultancy for engineers, architects, developers, and building managers.

“Developers tend to be ambitious in completing a building project ahead of schedule, but this seldom happens,” said Komarasu about the average duration of big construction projects. “Some major projects are delayed for one to two years because the industry is swarmed with too many projects.”

“This is where our expertise comes in. We work closely with the client’s project management team to ensure that the design and construction stages are done properly, which helps our customers save time and money,” he added.

“We collaborate with the main influencers in the property sector—architects, developers, and consultants—and see how our inputs can optimize their designs, and they really see the value that this relationship creates.”

Concepcion BIS houses air-conditioning brands Carrier, Toshiba, and Midea, and elevator brand Otis. “At the same time, developers, architects, and consultants play a crucial role by adopting these solutions in their buildings,” Komarasu said.,

“But the general awareness of ‘going green’ in the Philippines is still low,” Komarasu noted. “The first-time cost usually discourages some building owners from investing in energy-efficient technologies, but they don’t realize that these products lower operating expenses and give a faster return on investment.”

With the Philippines emerging as one of the region’s fastest growing economies, Komarasu is hopeful the next few years will show a brighter future for the country’s property sector. “Concepcion BIS intends to support this growth by continuing to provide end-to-end solutions, at the same time encouraging more influencers to invest in energy-efficient, environment-friendly building technologies that will sustain this momentum.”