Manila: Japanese shipbuilder Tsuneishi Heavy Industries (Cebu) is expanding the production capacity of its shipyard in Balamban, Cebu to boost annual revenues to P36bn in 2014, claiming it will become the largest shipyard in Southeast Asia.
The company, a 1994-established joint venture between Japan’s Tsuneishi and local form Aboitiz Equity Ventures, split 80:20, respectively, aims to raise annual production from an average of 12 ships over the last 19 years to 21 ships this year. Ship output tends to be bulkers varying in size from 35,000 dwt to 180,000 dwt.
Moreover, the plan in the next two years is to up capacity further to build 25 to 30 vessels a year.
“In about 20 years, we see ourselves as the mother shipyard among Southeast Asian countries and this part of Cebu as the shipping capital of the Philippines,” Tsuneishi Heavy Industries president Hotoshi Kono said.
Kono warned that a big speed bump for its progress could be in the Philippines’ unreliable electricity supply.
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