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EVEN Malacañang Palace has acknowledged that one of
the many positive factors to emerge from President Gloria Arroyo’s
recent visit to Spain was the announcement by Spanish conglomerate
Zed (formerly LaNetro Zed) of its plans to establish its Southeast
Asian regional headquarters in the Philippines.
The announcement came on the back
of meetings held in Madrid between the President and members of her
delegation dealing with trade and investment matters and top
executives of Zed.
“We have shared with Philippine
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and members of her government our
plans and willingness to increase the presence of Zed in the
Philippines,” said Javier Pérez Dolset, founder and CEO of Zed.
However, he added a proviso:
“This decision is, however, strongly hedged in clearing regulatory
difficulties and other legal obstacles we are currently encountering
in the Philippines.”
Zed has been operating a local
office in the Philippines since 2000 and is currently seeking an
early decision by the National Telecommunications Commission to
address an undefined regulatory issue regarding ownership of
value-added service providers. Zed also inherited Information
Gateway, the Philippine subsidiary of the British company MonsterMob
Group PLC after acquiring it in February 2007.
According to industry talk (much
aired during a business gathering at the Tower Club last week) the
“legal obstacles” that Dolset alluded to may be connected to
litigations with the former owners of Information Gateway—a Virgin
Island registered company believed to be a 100-percent foreign
owned—that have resulted in difficulties in Zed taking control of
the company.
Zed, the leading mobile content
company worldwide in terms of revenue and geographical presence, has
considered this decision due to the strategic location of the
country and its positive relations with the Arroyo administration
that was very gung-ho in encouraging foreign companies such as Zed
to expand in the country.
The planned Philippine regional
office will service the mobile content requirements of Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Zed’s global headquarters is in
Madrid and it has offices in 21 of the world’s top capitals on
four continents including London, Paris, Milan, Moscow, Mexico City,
Denver, Singapore, Manila, Beijing and Cape Town with business
activities in 38 countries. The company attained pro forma revenues
of $454 million in 2006 representing a 235-percent increase over the
same period in 2005.
Commented Dolset: “It would
make all the sense for us to set our South-East Asian Headquarters
in Manila, since our business in the country exceeds $50 million and
we are confident that bilateral business between Spain and the
Philippines can only grow in the near future. We appreciated very
much the interest shown by the Philippine administration in securing
such a significant international investment in the country.”
There was, however, another—and
somewhat curious—legal spanner thrown in the works by someone
identifying himself as a “Zed subscriber” who appealed to the
National Telecommunications Commission to issue a cease-and-desist
order against Zed Philippines which he claims is violating NTC rules
by continuing to do business here.
The plot, as they say, thickens.
E-mail: bizzfizz_98@yahoo.com
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