Property developer Megaworld on Tuesday said it has set aside P65 billion as capital spending for 2019, the bulk of which will be used for residential, office and mall projects.

“We are ramping up the residential properties in our portfolio this year as we have seen a remarkable spike in residential demand across our townships, both in Metro Manila and in the provinces,” EVP and chief strategy officer for Megaworld Kevin Tan was quoted in a regulatory disclosure.

Megaworld anticipates its leasable properties to rise by 2.14 million square meters by year-end, with office properties making up almost 60 percent of the total

“Likewise, we remain focused on cementing our leadership in the office category by launching more office spaces, and we are looking into opening more lifestyle malls as we keep track of our goal towards P20 billion in rental revenues by next year.”

Megaworld said that 80 percent of its capital expenditures is set for property developments while the remaining 20 percent is for land acquisition and investment properties.

The developer is scheduled to launch 28 new residential towers in key regional centers this year such as Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu, Bacolod, Iloilo, Pampanga, Cavite, Laguna, Boracay Island, Batangas, Rizal, and several spots in the business districts.

The projects are seen to generate roughly P90 billion in residential sales.

“On our rental portfolio, we are allocating most of our CAPEX in the completion of new office and lifestyle mall developments across our townships,” Tan added.

Megaworld expects to start the construction of five new office projects in Uptown Bonifacio, Capital Town in San Fernando, Pampanga and Westside City in Parañaque City, which will cover about 116,000 square meters in gross leasable spaces.

Aside from this, the developer will also be completing five office towers within the year with a total gross leasable area of around 189,000 square meters, on top of five commercial properties also seen completed in 2019, which will add 9,000 square meters of gross leasable spaces in Megaworld’s commercial retail portfolio.

With the projects at hand, Megaworld anticipates its leasable properties to rise by 2.14 million square meters by year-end, with office properties making up almost 60 percent of the total.

Megaworld Corp.’s shares in the stock exchange were traded for P5.29 apiece on Tuesday, the 17th most actively traded shares in the 30-company index.

The property index meanwhile lost by 1.26 percent during the trading day, side by side the 0.04 percent decline in the main index which closed at 8,050.82.