He said as many as 16 new malls would be set up until 2013 at a total cost of P12 billion to be funded mainly with internally generated funds.

The company, a unit of the Gokongwei group, has 20 malls of various sizes.

One mall will rise in Pulilan town in Bulacan province, north of Manila, and another in Cabanatuan City in the northern town of Nueva Ecija in the next few months, Go said.

Two malls opened in the first quarter: Robinsons Place Midtown, an extension of Robinsons Ermita in Manila, and the Robinsons Place Otis, also in Manila.

Go said four to five of the planned malls would have business process outsourcing (BPO) firms as tenants, which would provide a stream of mall customers as well as steady rental income.

In the first quarter, Robinsons Land’s net earnings rose 12 percent year-on-year to P681.9 million on revenues that rose four percent to P2.35 billion.

Go said he remained optimistic about this year’s prospects despite an expected slowdown in residential condominium sales to US-based Filipinos because of the subprime crisis. He said the company was trying to “defocus” from the US market and explore markets in Europe, which also has a high concentration of Filipino expatriates.

He said the impact of the shift in selling strategy would be minimal, as condominium sales to overseas Filipinos even at the peak reached only 25 percent of the company’s housing sales.

For this year, Robinsons Land has earmarked P10 billion for capital expenditures. About 40 percent will be spent on development of malls and the remainder on four residential condominium buildings, six horizontal housing projects and two BPO office buildings.

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