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By Chino S. Leyco, Reporter
THE Philippines’ revenue effort next year will decline due to a
lower target for state asset sales, the Department of Finance said.
Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said the
government is focused on collecting P1.393 trillion next year,
equivalent to a revenue effort of 16 percent. This is lower than the
16.3-percent revenue effort projection this year on weaker non-tax
revenues.
Non-tax revenues pertain to proceeds from the
sale of state assets.
“Privatization proceeds from the sale of FTI
(Food Terminal Inc.) and the lease of Fujimi [property in Japan]
will account for P10 billion, or 0.7 percent of non-tax revenues,”
Teves said.
The Food Terminal Inc. property in Taguig was
included in this year’s privatization program, but the Finance
department decided to defer the sale after receiving low bids. The
lease of the Fujimi property in Tokyo was also canceled due to
internal issues raised by the Philippine ambassador to Japan.
Teves said P1.313 trillion will be mobilized by
the Bureaus of Internal Revenue, of Customs and of Treasury, which
together account for 94.3 percent of the government’s total
revenue basket.
For this year, the Finance department has
programmed P30 billion in revenues from privatization, which
includes the sale of shares in Petron Corp. and Philippine National
Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC).
Teves said the sale of the government’s stakes
in Petron and PNOC-EC will be held before the end of the year, with
proceeds seen to reach at least P41 billion.
In January, the government sold its
shareholdings in Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) for P8.9 billion to
state-run Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).
The finance department announced last week that
the government has completed the requirements for the sale of its
stake in Petron, and received the go ahead from the inter-agency
Privatization Council.
The government has to offer the shares to the
Ashmore Group, which has the right of first refusal, as it holds 40
percent of Petron. The London-listed company earlier bought Saudi
Aramco’s Petron shares for $550 million.
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