Filipino developer Ayala Land Inc. is banking on a "sustained and balanced" growth strategy to achieve its target of a 20% increase in net income to 40 billion Philippine pesos by 2020, The Philippine Star reported, citing the company's CFO, Augusto Bengzon.

Bengzon told attendees of a COL Financial-organized forum Oct. 7 that Ayala Land is on track to achieve the target, the paper noted.

He was quoted in the Oct. 9 report as saying 50% of the growth strategy, for which the company earmarked 88 billion pesos, is rooted on property development while the remaining 50% is about leasing activities in the company's mall, office, hotels and resorts.

By 2020, the property arm of the Ayala Corp. conglomerate intends to increase its gross leasable area to 3.10 million square meters and its office space to 1.5 million square meters from 1.66 million square meters and 840,000 square meters, respectively, in 2017, the publication noted.

The developer is also looking to expand its hotel and resorts business by 2020 to a portfolio of 6,000 rooms from about 2,000 rooms, which is the goal for 2017-end.

For the six months ended June 30, the company's net income grew 18% year over year to 11.5 billion pesos from 9.7 billion pesos. Within this time-frame, the company splashed 41.6 billion pesos of its growth strategy budget, the paper added.

As of Oct. 6, US$1 was equivalent to 51.19 Philippine pesos.