Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAPAN DEC 2019 22 (Left to Right) CDC President and CEO Noel F. Manankil, Pampanga consultant Oliver Butalid and Provincial Investment Promotion Office head Lulu Alingcastre. (左から)CDC社長兼CEOのノエル F.・マナンキル氏、パンパンガ州コンサルタントのオリバー・ブ タリッド氏、州投資促進事務所所長のルル・アリンカストレ氏 COVER STORY seven different provinces in the Philippines’ central plains, booked 9.5% GDP growth in 2018, well above the national average of 6.2%, although Butalid notes that some provinces performed better than others. “Although we don’t have the aggregated data for that, we are sure Pampanga did the heavy lifting,” he adds. Located along the north-western border of Pampanga and traversing into neighboring Tarlac is Clark, a Special Economic Zone highlighted by the Government of the Philippines as the nation’s next major economic center. Spanning 32,000 hectares – about half the size of Singapore – Clark’s emergence as an economic powerhouse owes much to its history as a US Army base and, more specifically, Clark Air Base which was America’s largest overseas military installation for the best part of a century. When the US withdrew in 1991 following the eruption of Mt Pinatubo, which destroyed many of the buildings at the air base, the Philippines designated the area as a Special Economic Zone. The Clark Main Zone, an area covering 4,400 hectares including the former Clark Air Base, was designated a Freeport Zone in 2007. SOMETHING IN THE AIR The driving force behind the development of Clark Freeport Zone is the former Clark Air Base, now Clark International Airport, which at 2,400 hectares is four times larger than Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport. “Right now, Clark is about 50% tourism related industry and 50% investor manufacturing, but the way it is shaping up our focus is on Clark as an MCE (Meetings, Conferences, Exhibitions) destination,” explains Noel F. Manankil, President and CEO of Clark Development Corporation (CDC) – the government body tasked with