Influx of investments in Mindanao increases
THE annual average investment influx in Mindanao have jumped ten times from a P5 billion to P6 billion annual average in 2001 to 2010 to a P50 billion to P60 billion annual average in 2011 to 2016, said an official of the Mindanao Development Authority (Minda).
Minda Deputy Executive Director Romeo Montenegro said agriculture and infrastructure-related industries remain to be the top investments coming in Mindanao as the agricultural competitiveness and its need for infrastructure development create an edge compared to Luzon and Visayas.
Montenegro said Mindanao’s comparative and competitive strength is geared towards agribusiness. He added eight out of ten exportable commodities of the Philippines in the agriculture sector that are dollar-denominated are coming from Mindanao and that forty percent of the country’s food trades are from Mindanao as well.
Montenegro added the island region is especially competitive in aquaculture, cacao, and banana productions. “Our objective is simple: Provide agricultural farms, provide more jobs to the farmers, provide opportunities for small ones to scale up their home-based production and they become export-oriented,” he said, citing the bottled-sardines producers and fisher folks in Zamboanga Peninsula who started out as home-based processors and now export their products to other countries.
Montenegro said with the government’s target of increasing the infrastructure funding from five percent to seven percent, more investors are attracted to invest more in Mindanao.
“It creates interest particularly in Mindanao where you have so much of activities to be done in terms of infrastructure because we have inferior state of infrastructure compared to Luzon, then the overwhelming interest of investors whether Chinese, Japanese, Europeans are on infrastructure,” the Minda deputy executive director said.
Montenegro believed the improved power system in Mindanao is a magnet for investors to finally locate in the island, considering that it has a cheaper energy rate compared to Luzon and Visayas. He added most of the investors do not see the peace-conflict issues in Mindanao as a reason to stop their investment ventures.
“Against the backdrop of pockets of conflict like kidnapping in some areas that are isolated, bombing incidents, these do not define the true state and picture of Mindanao because against these realities, Mindanao still is an appetizing dish for many investors who see opportunities rather than challenges,” Montenegro said.
“We see these recent developments as phenomenal. We have not seen this for the longest time in Mindanao and this is consistent with what we have seen in the last five years where average influx in Mindanao have jumped ten times from where it was a decade before,” Montenegro added.
Read more: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/business/2017/03/16/influx-investments-mindanao-increases-531403
