SM Prime Holdings will increase capital spending 66 percent next year despite a global financial crisis that has sent developed economies into recession.

SM Prime is bucking a domestic trend in which big corporations like the Philippine Long Distance Co. and Globe Telecoms announced cuts in their 2009 spending plans earlier this month.

The worst financial crisis in 80 years has depressed profits at major financial and consumer companies worldwide.

SM Prime, a unit of conglomerate SM Investments Corp. of Henry Sy, one of the Philippines’ richest men, said in a statement to the stock exchange it would spend P10 billion next year from P6 billion this year.

The company is counting on steady remittances from overseas Filipinos, equivalent to about 10 percent of domestic output, to fuel continued growth in domestic consumption despite the deepening financial crisis globally.

The company, which recorded a 9 percent increase in net income in the third quarter, said 70 percent of the 2009 capital spending plan would go to the construction of new shopping malls and expansion of existing ones.