BIZ BUZZ: Maharlika is going for gold 

As the country’s sovereign wealth fund continues to explore potential investments, gold and copper mining has caught the eye of Maharlika managers.

Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, who also chairs the Maharlika Investment Corp., told Biz Buzz that several investments are under scrutiny.

“They’re talking about other energy projects in Mindoro, [and also] mining—Makilala Mines,” Recto said.

“We’re talking about many other things …”

Makilala Mining Co. Inc. is a subsidiary of Australian Securities Exchange-listed Celsius Resources Ltd. Its flagship project is the Maalinao-Caigutan-Biyog Copper-Gold Project located in the Cordillera Administrative Region, which also contains other key prospects in the pipeline for permit renewal.

The project site, popularly known as Batong Buhay, is located within the ancestral domain of the Balatoc Tribe. It is about 43 aerial kilometers west-southwest of Tabuk City, the capital of Kalinga.

Gold, historically a storer of value and a “safe haven” asset, continues to enjoy skyrocketing prices in the global market amid geopolitical uncertainties and stockpiling by central banks.

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Demand for copper is likewise robust, being a metal essential to build electric vehicles and renewable energy systems like solar panels and wind turbines in a world that’s in a rush to make that energy transition.

Most of all, the local regulatory environment has turned favorable now that the mining-averse Duterte regime is no longer in power.

But as we reported here earlier, what’s top of mind for Recto is the country’s electricity superhighway operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, which he prefers to be the very first investee company of Maharlika.