Aboitiz Economic Estates is positioning a newly opened Batangas State University (BatStateU) campus inside its flagship LIMA Estate as a magnet for global locators, betting that a steady pipeline of homegrown talent will draw more investment as the industrial estate expands.

LIMA, a Philippine Economic Zone Authority-registered estate straddling Lipa City and Malvar in Batangas, south of Metro Manila, anchors the portfolio of Aboitiz Economic Estates, the Aboitiz group's industrial estate arm, which also operates West Cebu Estate in Balamban, Cebu.

"We're putting a university here so that we can attract investment into the Philippines because we have the talent. What we expect to happen, because we have the talent here, we expect more companies to invest here in LIMA here in Batangas, which will lead to job generation," Aboitiz Economic Estates President Rafael P. Fernandez de Mesa told reporters at a media roundtable on Monday.

The 10-hectare campus opened the same day with nearly 1,000 students, the company said, and BatStateU expects enrollment to eventually reach tens of thousands.

According to Aboitiz Economic Estates, the partnership is designed to align the university's curriculum with the workforce requirements of LIMA's locators across electronics, semiconductors, automotive, food and beverage, and manufacturing — sectors at the core of the Philippine export economy, where electronics are the country's top merchandise export.

BatStateU President Tirso A. Ronquillo noted that the university, as the country's national engineering university — a designation formalized under Republic Act No. 11694 in 2022 — is mandated to provide free, high-quality education that prepares students for employment. The campus offers 10 programs, seven of them engineering-related and three technology-oriented.

"The presence of the industry experts in our classrooms will make these experts identify who are these best students, and [they] can be right away employed in their companies or industries," Mr. Ronquillo said.

LIMA Estate currently spans 1,100 hectares and hosts more than 200 companies employing about 75,000 people, according to Aboitiz Economic Estates. The company plans to expand the estate by another 500 hectares over the next 10 years and eventually support 250,000 jobs, with the campus rollout and the planned expansion unfolding on overlapping timelines.

Clifford M. Academia, Aboitiz Head of Operations for Economic Estates, said the estate's community is changing as it accommodates more office workers and students alongside factory employees.

"It's an entirely different dynamic when you have office workers versus factory workers," Mr. Academia said. "We want to make sure that the day-to-day life is organic [and that] they can really feel themselves as part of the community and envision themselves growing in the community."

BatStateU Campus Director Albertson D. Amante said students have already expressed interest in living within the estate.

"The questions that they're asking now is, are there support also for access to accommodation and the likes? And the good thing is, they're looking into really moving into the estate," he said, adding that on-site dormitories are planned.

Separately, Aboitiz Economic Estates said in May that the first 200 hectares of its TARI Estate in Tarlac City would become operational by the second quarter of 2026. — Juliana Chloe A. Gonzales