Growth catalyst

With a well-thought of and executed urban planning system, the right infrastructure such as airports, seaports, and land transport systems, a genuine concern for sustainability and the environment, and the political will to see these plans through, any city can be its own success story.

This early, many are already seeing the next Shenzhen success story being replicated in Bulakan town, Bulacan province with the rise of a world-class international airport in a town many have not even heard of nor seen.

And just like in Shenzhen whose airport was a key factor in its development into an economic powerhouse, San Miguel Corp.’s airport project can be the much-needed catalyst to catapult Bulacan and its neighboring towns and provinces into being a major contributor to our country’s recovery.

Shenzhen in China considered as the Silicon Valley of China and is one of the most competitive financial centers in the world. But at the same time, it was able to ensure the quality of life of its citizens as well as make sure that its economic development is sound for both present and future generations, according to a paper prepared for the United Nations Human Settlements Program or UN-Habitat.

According to the paper, Shenzhen has transformed itself from a small fishing village into a global economic powerhouse in just over 40 years, experiencing rapid economic, social and environmental transformation. Shenzhen ranks fifth in the world in terms of economic competitiveness. Beginning in 1979, Shenzhen has risen from being a poor remote fishing town to a global innovation metropolis and emerged from the bottom of the world’s industrial chain to a leading position. Shenzhen has made world history with its rapid development.

Shenzhen used to be a small town with an area of three square kilometers in 1978, increasing to 1,997 in 2010. Before the reforms and the opening-up policy, Shenzhen was a barren wasteland. It barely had any infrastructure. Now, it has the world’s foremost infrastructure as a global urban center. By 2017, there were eight metro lines with a total length of 285 km, making Shenzhen one of the top 10 global cities in terms of subway length in operation. Shenzhen is connected to more than 36 overseas cities by air. The handling capacity of Shenzhen Port has grown to 25.2 million TEUs containers per year, becoming the second largest port in the world for five consecutive years.

One of the key factors to its success is urban planning. Without adequate physical infrastructure, potential foreign investors would be discouraged. This is why Shenzhen’s planners have reinforced the role of high-tech industry and services, with particular attention on the strategic use of land, and transportation and infrastructure development. In the subsequent years, the city grew, along with comprehensive transportation infrastructure that facilitated its development, it added.

Today Shenzhen is a top tourist destination. Euromonitor International has ranked the city 10th among the most important world destinations in terms of number of international arrivals.

All these could not have been achieved without a good airport.

This is also the reason why Shenzhen airport, China’s fifth largest airport and a world-class international aviation hub, is now set to build a smart future airport. So from aircraft manufacturing to flight operation and from air traffic management to ground support, services at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport are about to get smarter with the help of a digital operation makeover.

If things proceed as planned, Bulakan town in Bulacan will soon experience the start of something big, in the same way that Shenzhen was able to transform from being a small fishing village to the economic powerhouse that it is today.

This Bulacan town is however blessed. While government authorities in Shenzhen had to come up with innovative schemes to raise funds in order to build the city’s infrastructure from scratch, One San Miguel Corp. is building the P740-billion New Manila International Airport purely from private financing. And in the same way that Shenzhen started out as a fishing village, Bulakan town is in the throngs of joining the big leagues.

It is unfortunate though that there are some who would rather be stumbling blocks to Bulakan town’s development, and that of Bulacan and its neighboring provinces, by raising issues that do not have any support whatsoever. These people have thrown everything in their playbook at the project, from environmental doomsday scenarios to fears of increasing poverty. What they don’t seem to realize, or refuse to realize, is the fact that a very successful conglomerate like San Miguel Corp. will not invest hundreds of billions of pesos for a project that will be underwater in 50 years (as one writer warns, refusing to acknowledge the fact many airports are in fact purposely located near bodies of water for safety purposes), or for a project that will just tarnish its good business reputation.

We are at this point reminded of the conservatives who opposed Shenzhen’s development plan at the start but who now marvel at its success.

This new airport project by SMC will not only benefit nearby residents who were already provided an avalanche of skills training, livelihood opportunities, and even financial assistance to build new concrete homes; in fact, the company is undertaking a massive river dredging project that will include major Bulacan river systems to help reduce flooding, benefitting not only Bulakan town and Bulacan province but Central Luzon in general. For starters, SMC has started planting 200,000 mangroves all over the region to prevent tidal flooding.

There are also those who belatedly question the grant by law of financial incentives (not subsidies as some would like to call it because after all, government is not spending any money for this new airport, for the project. But isn’t this the purpose of tax incentives, to encourage investments?  The P740-billion investment for the airport is just the beginning. Together with the adjacent Aerocity development, SMC is investing a mind-blowing P1.5 trillion in total. This is without mention to the ripple effect this will have in terms of attracting locators to the ecozone, the new direct and indirect jobs it will generate.

With its scheduled groundbreaking in the next few weeks, let us look forward to this game-changing project, which again is far from just being a mega infrastructure – it is a catalyst that will transform our country and propel its economic recovery.

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