Higher sales target set

From Business World (Jul 24): Higher sales target set

THE OPERATOR of stores inside military camps expects higher sales this year on the back of plans to establish additional drugstores in facilities outside Metropolitan Manila, a spokesman said yesterday.

Jessilyn T. Ayuyao, Public Information Office chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Commissary and Exchange Service (AFPCES), said sales for the year is targeted at 3.1 billion, adding that the service earned 627 million in the first quarter. Comparative figures were not readily available.

Ms. Ayuyao said four new pharmacies are planned to be established within the year at Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija; Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal; Clark in Pampanga; and Camp Lapu-Lapu in Cebu.

Asked on the reason for the expansion, Ms. Ayuyao said the plan is “... to reach customers in far-flung areas so they can avail of cheap medicines... there are no drugstores for soldiers in the province, they [drugstores] are only available here in Metro Manila.”

AFPCES outlets, whose clients are military personnel and their families living inside camps, sell at discounted prices.

Ms. Ayuyao said a new drugstore was opened in Camp Panacan in Davao last May.

“Government subsidy remains the same since we have not requested for an increase as of the moment,” she said.

In its Web site, the AFPCES states: “We envision... by 2013 to be at par with the country’s leading ‘one-stop shop’ dedicated to serve its authorized customers.”

AFPCES, which enjoys tax subsidy, has 33 outlets, six drugstores, and two gas stations inside military bases nationwide.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s Fiscal Incentives Review Board has granted tax subsidy to AFPCES on September 2003.

http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=Higher-sales-target-set&id=73909