ECCP to announce new prexy during membership meeting

CEBU, Philippines - The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) will announce the appointment of its new vice president and general manager, Michel Miloda during the slated General Membership Meeting this coming May 5, 2011 at the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu.

Miloda will honor the outgoing vice president Henry Schumacher for his 20-year of leadership and hard in the ECCP organization.

Effective April 1, 2011 Schumacher was succeeded as vice president and general manager of ECCP by Miloda.

Miloda brings a broad background in international operations and experience working for multi-national organization.

Over his 35-year career Miloda has been based for over five years in the Philippines in addition to various other locations across Asia including Hong Kong, South Korea.

However, Schumacher, who has been with ECCP since 1989, will not be leaving the Chamber. He has been appointed as Vice President for External Affairs and will work closely with the Board of Directors, Committee Chairmen and Miloda in managing the Chamber's various advocacy projects and external affairs.

The ECCP General Membership Meeting is co-presented by Marco Polo Plaza Cebu.

ECCP is a bilateral foreign chamber that promotes European interests in the Philippines as well as Philippine interests in Europe. With more than 700 members, ECCP offers a strong business network that potentially translates to multiple business opportunities. It is a unique organization that offers membership as well as professional services to members and clients. As a service provider, ECCP assists member companies in trade fairs, trainings, business consultancy and business matching and, events management.

Meanwhile, in an earlier, Schumacher urged the Cebu Creative Industry to make a serious stance in strengthening the developing the sector, as this is seen as a gateway to minimize the ongoing exportation of designers.

ECCP has made its strong commitment to help the Cebu-based exporters, including the creative sector amid the challenging environment in the world market.

Shumacher emphasized the need for the Creative Industry in Cebu to get united as potential is huge, but designers, the creative community must realize to put premium in the creations.

According to Schumacher, the creative sector must start to cultivate the culture of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), what remains to be the problem now he said is “we are not respecting enough the IPR,” and some designers, or creative individuals do not put “premium” to their creations.

Schumacher said Cebu has so many world-class creative-communities not only in furniture, fashion, but also in Information Technology (IT). He mentioned that during his visit at Bigfoot, he was impressed of the brilliant creative young minds doing excellent jobs in producing innovations, software designs, among others.

Developing the creative industry in Cebu is part of ECCP-Cebu Business Council’s seven priority sectors that will be given attention by the group this year.

Schumacher said there is a need for the industry to be given utmost attention, especially in Cebu, wherein the best creative people are here.

He believes that the Philippines in general can well leverage in designing across industries, may it be fashion, furniture, fashion accessory, IT, interior design, graphics, engineering, and others.

Strengthening this creative expertise in Cebu in particular, would put a stop the exodus of good designers going overseas to look for higher-paying jobs.

   If the creative sector will start to standardize their talent fees, or put premium in their creations, what they will earn in their homeland, will be comparable to what they will be getting if they go abroad to look for employment.— (FREEMAN)