The project is a joint venture of South Korea’s CPNP Holdings, the world’s seventh largest paper and pulp manufacturing company, and the Province of Isabela.

The memorandum of understanding for cooperation between the two, which will jump-start the project, will be signed 23 May by Park Jong Bong, CPNP chairman, and Isabela Governor Faustino Dy Jr.

The parties will incorporate CPNP Isabela Philippines, Inc. as the vehicle that will undertake the project. The project would be subsequently registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority as an export enterprise.

The project’s Philippine proponents are Filipino entrepreneur Alfred Joseph S. Araneta and Manila-based Korean trader Lee Hyun-Suk.

“This investment is a coup for the Philippines as this project was on its way to another ASEAN country,” Araneta said.

The project is expected to directly employ more than 500 people and benefit thousands of corn farmers in Isabela Province.

CPNP is erecting its factory on a 50-hectare area in Cauayan, Isabela, that will be expanded to a total of 100 hectares in the next two years. Production capacity is expected to be 40,000 metric tons of pulp per year using 150,000 metric tons of corn stalks as raw materials from Isabela’s corn farms.

CPNP Holdings and the U.S.-based Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) will be investing USD 40 million for the first phase of the project and another USD 60 million for its second phase.