Hopewell launches Quezon plant

JUST 24 hours after a Philippine court cleared the way for the Hopewell Group's huge, US$888 million power plant, president Mr Fidel Ramos visited the plant site in Quezon province yesterday to launch the construction of the project.

Mr Ramos said the plant, due to start operations in 1995, would not harm the environment and would also lead to the development of Quezon, allowing it to become one of the light industrial centres that the government is trying to set up outside Manila todecongest the capital.

''The government will not allow the beauty of this place to be destroyed,'' he told a crowd at the official groundbreaking of the plant.

Mr Ramos said both the environment and energy departments had made an environmental impact study on the plant, whose construction was delayed by a court injunction from environmentalists and local residents.

The ceremony was attended by a large Hopewell delegation headed by its executive director Mr Stewart Elliott.

The biggest private investment to date in the power sector was held up at the last minute by a temporary restraining order issued January 26 by the court of appeals. The court issued the injunction because the family which owns the 90 hectare site on Pagbilao Grande Island - about 100 kilometres south of Manila - could not agree on the selling price to the National Power Corp (Napocor).