THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST shopping mall developer and operator will continue its aggressive expansion program over the next five years, by raising its capital outlay for new malls, both locally and in China.

In a press briefing, SM Prime Holdings Inc. chief financial officer Jeffrey Lim said the company would spend P33 billion over the next five years to boost its mall network nationwide.

The Henry Sy-controlled firm will also increase its presence in China by opening “three to four�? malls in the same period, company president Hans Sy told the reporters.

He said the company was scheduled to begin construction of a new mall in Chongqing in China’s Sichuan province by the third quarter once all licenses and permits were obtained from government regulators.

The new mall will cost “a little over P1 billion.�? Sy said the cost of building a mall in China was comparable to the cost of building one locally, both in terms of materials and labor.

SM Prime’s Chongqing operation will be its fourth mall in Mainland China.

The firm has a pending application with local corporate regulators for the approval of its bid to acquire malls in the Chinese cities of Jinjiang, Xiamen and Chengdu through a share swap deal with its existing owners.

The prospects for SM’s operations in China, according to Sy, are positive to the point that it has now embarked on an expansion program for its Xiamen mall.

Despite the firm’s foray into China, Lim said the Philippines would remain the listed firm’s core market.

“We have 30 malls in the Philippines, if which 16 were put up only in the last five years,�? he said.

The company’s Chinese operations have so far contributed less than 3 percent to total revenue. Within the next 10 years, Lim sees SM Prime’s China mall’s contributing “less than 10 percent�? of revenue.

For the first quarter of this year, Sy said the company’s revenue continued to be robust despite the widely expected economic slowdown.

There is still growth, but not as strong as last year’s,�? he said, adding that the growth story for the rest of 2008 “is still there.�?

As the company’s stockholders’ meeting yesterday, its board of directors declared a 24-centavo cash dividend worth P2.99 billion. This is in line with SM Prime’s dividend policy of a 50-percent payout ratio of the prior year’s net income, which stood at P5.97 billion.

Capital expenditure for this year was estimated at P6 billion.