AYALA Land Inc. (ALI) said it plans to launch three to four premium property projects before the end of 2024 to utilize its current land bank and existing estates in developing new districts.

"We want to keep our inventory tight and make more efficient use of our working habitat. And in terms of what we're launching, I just wanted to say why P86 billion is a good number. If you can see the growth from last year, it's 10 percent," ALI Chief Finance Officer Augusto Bengzon told a media briefing last week.

The planned premium projects this year, he said, will consist of a high-value vertical project in Metro Manila, while the remaining developments will be built outside the metropolis, particularly in the South.

ALI has a land bank of some 11,300 hectares and has been utilizing an average of 800 hectares per year, with plans to develop another 4,000 hectares in the next five years, he noted.

"We have made a deliberate decision not to acquire additional land, unless it's a very special parcel of [land]," he said. "We know where those parcels are, but they're not yet up for sale. So the base plan is to use our land bank, maybe about 800 [hectares] on the average, 800 hectares a year," Bengzon said.

President and Chief Executive Officer Anna Ma. Margarita Bautista-Dy noted that demand for ALI's premium segment has been steady and that their buyer pool continues to expand.

"The onus is on us to come up with products that will really cater to the requirements of that segment and be able to compete and offer something different from [our] competitors," she added.

ALI will not be launching new estates but "new districts within existing estates," she explained.

"We want to really use the land bank in our existing estates, as opposed to keep launching new ones. So it's a slightly different approach, but it's really because we feel that we want to make sure that all our estates really all come to life."

"What's exciting is... we're hopeful about growth in international travel. I think there's a projection that foreign arrivals will double in the next few years, and so we are going to be rolling out a number of new products" with those foreign travelers in mind, she added.

ALI shares on Friday closed up 20 centavos, or 0.67 percent, to P30 apiece.