CCCI keen on pushing province-wide ecozone

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) is going to revisit the possibility of pushing for the Cebu Economic Development Zone (CEDZ) as Cebu is now seen to face shortage of industrial zone properties in the short term.

"We are in consultation with our business and political leaderships how and when we can push for it," said CCCI president Lito Maderazo.

The House Bill 1319, creating the Cebu Special Ecozone and Free Port, has already passed through the House's economic affairs committee some three years ago.

The bill was authored by all the eight congressmen from Cebu and is jointly supported by local business groups.

Philippines Economic Zone Authority (Peza) director general Lilia de Lima, on the other hand, said that although Cebu needs availability, making Cebu a province-wide economic zone is difficult.

She said monitoring inflow and outflow of goods will be more complicated if the province will be declared as economic zone.

Maderazo said while the proposal or the House Bill 1319, creating the Cebu Special Ecozone and Free Port, has gained so much resistance, the chamber is also putting its focus now on encouraging private sector to set up or invest in developing economic zones, aside from convincing and consulting the political leaders to possibly pursue it.

"We will leave the fate of the CEDZ proposal to the lawmakers. Meanwhile, we will try to convince those that have money to invest in economic zone development," Maderazo said.

The CEDZ is envisioned to be a paradigm of an effective and functioning public-private sector partnership with the private sector taking the lead and government providing infrastructure and institutional support and contributing part of the needed resources.

However, Maderazo said while Cebu cannot wait for the bill to be passed into law, which is expected to take time, the chamber now is gearing towards encouraging developers to invest on ecozone projects, as Cebu needs to boost its manufacturing side.

"We would rather encourage private developers to create economic zones. Ours in Cebu are almost full," the new chamber president said calling the attention of AboitizLand Inc., the developer of MEZ-2, to build another economic zone here.

"We need manufacturing to aid our growth in BPO, tourism. We can't continue to soar in 'one leg', manufacturing is the key to have a balance economic growth," said Maderazo.

While the law is needed now, as Cebu now lacks the availability of vacant economic zones to host interested investors, Peza's requirement of five-hectare ecozone development could solve the problem, just like what is being done in Mitsumi in Danao City. /JMD (FREEMAN)