CLARK FREEPORT ZONE -- A Kuwaiti firm has joined the "billion-dollar club" of investors in the country as it seeks to set up a world-class business park here.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo led the groundbreaking ceremonies here Monday marking the start of construction of the $1.025-billion Global Gateway Logistics City (GGLC) of the Kuwaiti government-owned firm KGL Investment Co.

The project will be carried out by Peregrine Development International, which has an executive team that has experience and knowledge of operations in the Philippines since 1972.

"Last April, we witnessed the signing of the agreements for this project. After only four months, now we see it take off. We welcome Kuwait's trust in our economy," Arroyo told the audience, which includes the representative of the Kuwait royal family, Shiek Ahmad Daoud Salman Al-Sabah.

Arroyo said that with the investment, KGL joins Texas Instruments and other members of the billion-dollar club.

The project, first fully integrated master-planned center for airport and aviation-oriented operations and businesses in the country, is expected to generate at least 35,000 new jobs and spur economic development in the province and in the region.

Arroyo thanked Kuwait for granting her request to commute to life imprisonment the death sentence of Filipino workers Marilou Ranario and May Vecina.

She also acknowledged the Kuwaiti government for extending developmental loan to the country. Its biggest project, she said, was the road from Pagadian through Lanao del Norte and Sur and Maguindanao to Cotabato City, stretching 115 kilometers.

Arroyo said Kuwait has offered to help upgrade the Davao Regional Hospital into a national cancer center, the Cotabato Regional Medical Center into a regional cancer center, and modernize the Zamboanga Medical Center surgery block.