MANILA - Emperador on Monday said it would hike its capital expenditure for 2022 despite global challenges as it focuses on expanding its global footprint.

The Filipino liquor company, which is also one of the largest global brandy companies, will focus its efforts on expanding into new markets abroad with a capital expenditure P3 billion for 2022 from P1.74 billion in 2021.

“Most of the CAPEX budget will be spent outside the Philippines, bulk of which will be on the whisky business,” says Emperador Inc. president Winston Co.

"We are pursuing a global strategy of premiumization and internationalization. Our focus is to bring our products into more countries and territories. We believe that is the future growth of Emperador as a global company," Co added.

The company is also leveraging its global resources to minimize the impact of global supply chain challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the impact of the war in Ukraine, Co said.

"Being a global company and having manufacturing facilities in many parts of the world, we are trying to mitigate this situation using our global resources, supply chain, to ensure the protection of our margin and making our products are available," Co said during the company's annual shareholders' meeting.

The war in Ukraine has "aggravated" the supply chain and logistics issues with the fuel prices surging. The company has earlier raised prices in certain markets, Co said.

"The impact will depend on the region. Asia is less impacted than Europe and North America and in most regions we are able to raise our prices to partially cover for the inflation," he said.

Emperador is hoping the current circumstances are temporary, and they are banking on further expansion into new markets around the world to boost growth.

Emperador's brandy and whisky products are available in over 100 countries.

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Philippine inflation hit 4.9 percent in April, breaching the government target of 2 to 4 percent. Emperador Inc., whose brandy and whisky products are available in more than 100 countries across six continents, is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange.