CLARK FREEPORT -- Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC) President and CEO Victor Jose I. Luciano has asked two US senators to help in the transformation of Clark airport into an "aerotropolis".
US Senators Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, President Pro Tempore of the US Senate, and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, both members of the committee on appropriations, visited the CIAC Corporate Offices on Tuesday and made a quick tour at the expanded Terminal 1 of the Clark International Airport.
During a presentation at CIAC, Luciano revealed the development of a logistics and services hub in the Clark airport area. It is patterned after the logistics hub in Dallas Forthworth, Texas where the development of two cities created an "aerotropolis".
"The airport-driven economic powerhouse brought in hundreds of companies around the airport in Dallas. This is where we would like to seek the US government to help us plan to make the Clark Civil Aviation Complex an aerotropolis," said Luciano.
Luciano asked the two lawmakers to help promote Clark to American investors.
Inouye invited Luciano to join the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (Apec) meeting in Hawaii this year to make a pitch for the development of Clark airport.
"You should come to the Apec meeting in Hawaii and make the same kind of presentation," Inouye told Luciano.
This year's annual Apec Leader's Meeting will be held in Honolulu, Hawaii in November. It is one of the world's largest intergovernmental meetings, the premier forum being composed of 21 Pacific Rim counties, called member-economies, which meet annually to cooperate on regional trade and investment issues.
The two senators were impressed with the activity at the Clark airport, according to Luciano.
Cochran and Inouye, who already visited the former Clark Air Base for several times in the past, expressed optimism over the current developments at the Clark Civil Aviation Complex.
"The two senators were very much impressed with the transformation of Clark into a powerhouse. They saw the bulk of incoming and outgoing passengers at the Clark airport," said Luciano.
Luciano said Inouye and Cochran were in the Philippines to look into the transformation of the two former US military bases - Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base -- into productive civilian use.
Clark Freeport Zone is now the site of an international airport while Subic Freeport Zone has a deep-sea port. The two economic generators are linked by the modern Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.  |