MANILA, Philippines - The Indian-owned Global Steel Philippines Inc. (GSPI), operator of formerly state-owned National Steel Corp. (NSC) in Iligan City, has been given a month to submit a status report on its steel manufacturing operation as the government is bent on implementing a course of action, including possible foreclosure and takeover, to make the country's supposedly biggest steel plant back on its feet after almost a year of staying idle.
This developed after the Board of Investments (BoI) has created a taskforce headed by executive director Raul V. Angeles to assess the GSPI situation.
Angeles had met with GSPI officials to require them to submit the status report within a month's time or until the second week of May.
During the meeting, Angeles said that GSPI officials also informed him they were set to resume operation in July this year.
In a separate interview, BoI managing head Cristino L. Panlilio said the government should know the plans of GSPI for the Iligan plant.
It could be recalled that the Indian firm acquired the former NSC facilities in 2004 for P13.25 billion, including an upfront payment of P1 billion down payment it owed to secured NSC creditors and the balance to be paid over an eight-year period in compliance with the asset purchase agreement governing the sale of the Iligan-based steel manufacturing complex.
In 2008, however, GSPI took the creditors to a Singaporean arbitration court to stop its lenders from declaring it in payment default.
GSPI claimed the creditors and the liquidator were in breach of their obligations when they failed to deliver clean titles of the facilities owing to unpaid real estate taxes of the then NSC between 1999, the time when the plant closed, and September 2004 when GSPI took over the facilities. GSPI claimed it was not able to secure loans for its Iligan operation for failure to take possession of the titles to the property.
The company was saddled with financial difficulties including debts from the National Power Corp. and real estate taxes to the local government of Iligan City.
