Solway Investment Group, a Swiss owned mining firm with two operating chromite mines in the Philippines, is interested in diversifying into agriculture.
The company has an initial plan of building in Mindanao banana plantation that is seen to be the next largest contiguous land dedicated to the crop in the whole world.
As revealed by the Department of Agriculture secretary Emmanuel Piñol, Techiron Resources, Inc. is also interested in putting up the massive plantation in Mindanao aside from Solway Investment Group.
Solway Group is a private mining and metals group based in Switzerland. They have mines and smelting plants in Guatemala, Ukraine, Russia, Macedonia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Their two open pit chromite mines here in the Philippines are both located in Homonhon Island, Guiuan, Eastern Samar.
The Philippine company in which Solway Group will place their investment is still unknown.
According to data provided by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), there are only two chromite mines in Eastern Samar as of 2016 – Mt. Sinai Resources and Exploration Corporation and Techiron Resources.
In another data, it was disclosed that Techiron Resources is 37.5 percent owned by Swiss investors which were not named.
The Agriculture secretary said that Solway Group and Techiron Resources are represented by Philippine-based French-Russian businessman named Robert Gaspar.
Additionally, Piñol was quoted last week saying that investors were supposed to be Russians. However, it was clarified by the DA secretary that interested investors are both involved in mining and minerals but now are making plans in Philippine agriculture and aquaculture aiming to sell produce to the Russian market.
The companies are going to develop 1,000 hectares of land as part of their initial plan and officials are said to arrive in the Philippines on the target launch date of the project on February 16.
