Manila Water the water concessionaire for the East Zone of Metro Manila, said it would submit scaled-up proposals within the third quarter of the year for possible water concessions in Myanmar and Indonesia following the completion of its pilot projects.
In a news briefing after the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting, the company’s Chief Operating Officer for New Business Operations Virgilio Rivera Jr. said these proposals will be for Yangon City in Myanmar and Bandung City in Indonesia.
Rivera said the company submitted their report for the successful pilot project that drastically reduces the nonrevenue water in Yangon and expect to complete a similar pilot project in Bandung City, the capital of West Java.
“With the completion of these pilot projects, we have shown them our best practices and are now ready to propose a scaled-up version,” Rivera said.
The company’s new President and CEO Ferdinand de la Cruz said it is ready to take on much bigger projects in these cities to the extent of a full-scale water concession like what they have in the East Service Zone of Metro Manila. De la Cruz said the company’s expansion into countries in Southeast Asia will contribute to their goal of achieving a net income of P11.5 billion by 2020 and that half of this should come from businesses other than its Metro Manila concession, currently its single-biggest revenue generator.
Rivera said the company intends to do more pilot projects in other parts of the Philippines and Southeast Asia as local government units and water districts are more receptive to tapping Manila Water based on its Metro Manila experience.
In Yangon it partnered with Mitsubishi Corp. to adopt two district metering areas located in South Okkalapa and Insein.
By the end of 2016, nonrevenue levels in both townships dropped to 14 percent from 54 percent.
For Bandung, Indonesia’s fourth-largest city, a population of 2.4 million, the company has reduced non-revenue water from a high of 59 percent in September last year to 23 percent in just three months.
Inc., Rivera said they have also been tapped by SM Development Corp. for five residential projects and will be signing up for five more by early next year.