Butuan official urges Cebu business sector to invest in Mindanao‘promotes Mindanao biz conference in Cebu’
By Fayette C. Ri�en
CEBU CITY, July 25 (PIA) –A local official from Butuan City has urged Cebu business sector to invest in Mindanao and explore the region as a business trading partner.
“Cebu furniture and fashion accessories exporters could source their raw materials from Mindanao,” said Vice Mayor Lemuel Lawrence Hernandez- Fortun.
Fortun was in Cebu to promote the Mindanao Business Conference 2012 to be held in Butuan City from August 2 to 4.
He said the Mindanao Business Conference could be a venue for possible business linkages between Cebu and Mindanao businessmen.
Fortun said it is a major challenge for pubic officials like him to promote Mindanao as an ideal investment haven because of reports on bombings and clashes between government forces and rebels.
“But these incidents do not reflect the general situation of Mindanao because these only happen in isolated areas. The problem is when there is a bombing incident that occurred in a specific town, all areas in Mindanao are heavily affected,” said Fortun.
The vice mayor said Mindanao is rich in wood and timber as well as mining and has huge potential for eco-tourism.
In order to make Butuan City a conducive area to do business, Fortun said they have put up a center to hasten processing of business permits to less than 30 minutes. “We put up a one-stop-shop where agencies in government are all in there to sign and approve the business permit which cuts significant processing time,” he said.
“We are also reviewing our tax incentives and finalizing the improvement of investment ordinance increasing tax holiday for investors with very huge sum of investments like over P500 million,” bared Fortun. The vice mayor said the existing law provides investors with a five-year tax holiday for investments of over P40 million as he added that in order to entice more investments to come in, a local ordinance will seek to increase tax holiday for huge amount of investments.
A major legislation in the offing is the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Code which is a comprehensive ordinance on PPP which includes 16 modalities such as joint ventures, build-operate-transfer scheme and public assets management, disclosed Fortun.
“We are also about to pass the first-ever Watershed Code that aims to protect the environment as we promote eco-tourism in Mindanao,” further bared the vice mayor. (PIA-Cebu)
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Smart Growth for Mega Cebu Program
By Juju Manubag-Empuerto
CEBU CITY, July 25 (PIA) -- In line with the Mega Cebu Program, the Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center (EADSC) of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc (RAFI), with the support of the Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE), has conducted a learning session on smart growth at the RAFI-EADSC building.
The two-part event, entitled, “Smart Growth 102: From Theory to Practice” discussed the applicability and practicability of the concept in the local context.
Smart growth is a theory on new urbanism that promotes economically, environmentally and socially responsible growth by looking at connections between development and the quality of life. It advocates for the concentration of grown in compact, “walkable” urban communities to avoid urban sprawl.
Members of the Metro Cebu Development Coordinating Board (MCDCB), representatives from the local government units (LGUs), government & non-government offices (GOs & NGOs), urban planners, engineers, architects, academe, religious and senior citizens tackled possible challenges and solutions in applying smart growth in Metro Cebu.
US-based architect Senen M.A. Antonio of the Duany-Plater Zyberk (DPZ) was the resource speaker during the one day session.
Antonio first introduced the smart growth concept during the Sustainable City Dialogues in Cebu in February 2012. (FCR/JSME/RAFI/PIA-Cebu).