MANILA — SM Prime Holdings, the Philippines’ largest property developer by market value, said on Thursday it plans to open six new shopping centers this year.
 
Five malls will be opened mostly in the greater Manila area, bringing the company’s total number of local shopping centers to 61 by year end, SM Prime said in an investor presentation. It would also expand two provincial malls to meet growing consumption outside the capital.
 
SM Prime, controlled by the family of the Philippines’ richest man Henry Sy, is also making good its promise to open one mall per year in China, despite slowing growth there. The company said it would prioritize expansion in Tier II and III cities, where consumption has been growing at a faster rate.
 
Its seventh SM mall in China will be completed sometime this year in Tianjin, and will have a gross floor area of 540,000 square meters. SM Prime already has other malls in Xiamen, Jinjiang, Chengdu, Suzhou, Chongqing, and last year Zibo.
 
SM Prime had earmarked 65 billion pesos ($1.36 billion) for its capital expenditure this year, more than half of which will go toward the construction of malls.
 
SM Prime has allocated 22.8 billion pesos for its residential properties business. Around 16 billion pesos will be spent on building new residences while the rest will be used to finance land bank expansion.
 
SM Prime also has its fingers in office and hotel developments, although they make up less than 10% of the company’s sales. SM Prime last month started the construction of a 4.2-billion pesos office building, and is on track to open a 347-room Conrad Hotel.
 
Both properties are near the company’s Mall of Asia shopping center. The company is trying to build “lifestyle cities” or residential, shopping and office hubs.
 
SM Prime also said it would spend 220 billion pesos in the next three years. This is part of a 400-billion-pesos five-year expansion program started in 2014 aimed at doubling SM Prime’s net income to 32 billion pesos by 2018.