Chamber forms council to cushion crisis impact

To cushion the anticipated impact of the global economic crisis, the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) initiates the creation of a special advocacy committee to be known as “Cebu Business Council.”

CCCI president Edward Gaisano said “we believe that in the next few months and years, economic and financial issues will be everybody's concern, and we need to address these issues."

The council, which will be headed by former CCCI president Geronimo Sta. Ana, will commission a third party agency tasked to study the imminent impact of the global crisis to the local economy. 

Sta. Ana, who also heads another special committee working on the Cebu Economic Development Zone (CEDZ) Bill, said the council will tackle global and domestic issues and come up with advocacy recommendations to be adopted by the chamber and its members.

"We will start the ground work, and be pro-active in addressing economic matters that affect Cebu's economy," Gaisano said.

He said the US recession could result in cutbacks in the country's production, which will affect the overall economic situation, including Cebu.

Part of the council's focus is to study the competency of Cebu, amid the global economic slowdown, in order to find out what needs to be done, and what proper advocacy will be pushed by the business sector to the government.

With the formation of the council, which is composed of chamber members who are in the economic and financial sectors, CCCI will be able to react to immediate issues concerning the economy.

It can be recalled that Cebu's business sector had been very aggressive in pushing advocacies in the post 1997 regional economic crisis, especially in calling the Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas (BSP) to help the affected business players crippled by the high interest rates, by marching on the streets expressing their protest.

CCCI aims to form a fully functional council before the year ends.

Now, that CCCI has been recognized as the most outstanding local chamber by the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chamber of Commerce and Industry, it has to live up to its name.

The Cebu chamber competed in the final round against the Darkhan CCI of Mongolia and Birgunj CCI of Nepal. There were a total of 18 nominations in the large chamber category where Cebu belonged.