Apart from China, Sy-led property firm SM Prime Holdings Inc. plans to enter other Southeast Asian markets, whose culture are similar to our own, in line with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic integration by 2015.

“We haven’t really started… but the countries we’ll be focused on is in the Southeast Asian region,” SM Prime Holdings Inc. chairman Henry Sy Jr. said in a briefing after the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting at the Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

“There are a lot of opportunities out there. With all our resources and skills, we are poised to go further outside Philippine shores,” he said.

By 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community sets in motion the creation of single market for the 10-nation bloc.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 

Sy said the focus on Southeast Asia is a decision based on the cultural approach to business, because their cultures “are not different from the Philippines.”

The plan to go overseas – apart from China – is not yet factored into the five-year plan of the SM Prime, president Hans Sy said in the same briefing.

“We have not yet included other opportunities. What we just presented are those identified clearly,” he added.

On Tuesday, SM Prime unveiled a five-year plan that involves P400 billion in capital expenditures to double revenues and income of the consolidated property company of the Sy group.

Last January, the SM Prime president told GMA News Online there was a need for companies to expand overseas but declined to comment which areas they are looking at. 

“Nowadays, if we’re not global, mawawala tayo. There’s no point really on saying when you’re ready or not. It’s really a matter of how focused you are and we are really a focused company,” he said. – VS, GMA News