ARMM business gab boosts confidence of foreign investors

COTABATO CITY — Last week’s two-day congress in Marawi City of traders from all over the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has improved investors’ confidence in the region’s business climate, officials said.

After the gathering of some 500 businessmen from the ARMM provinces and nearby Asian countries, British investors signified their intention of putting up a power facility in Sulu and expanding an Arab-funded large-scale banana propagation farm in Maguindanao.

Ishak Mastura, the regional trade secretary, said Bryan Murray of the Makati-based Business Partners Consulting Asia, discussed with Tausog businessman Benjamin Loong, who owns the only copra mill in Sulu, the viability of putting up a power plant on the island-province.

"This favorable development is a tangible outcome of the two-day ARMM regional business congress," Mastura said.

ARMM Executive Secretary Nabil Tan, who hails from Maimbung, Sulu, said Sulu traders have not been expanding their businesses because of power problems.

"If there are big investments in Sulu, as a result of the province getting energized, there will be employment for the people and subsequently, peace and order will certainly improve," Tan said.

Sulu, one of the ARMM’s component provinces, is popular for its exotic fruits and aquatic resources.

Datu Totoh Paglas, chief executive officer of the Paglas Corp. in Maguindanao’s now booming Datu Paglas town, said their planners are now drafting a blueprint for the expansion of their banana farm projects in Upi, a hinterland town in the first district.

Upi, known as Maguindanao’s "summer capital," is the top corn-producing town in the province.

Paglas, mayor for three consecutive terms of his hometown of Datu Paglas, was responsible for convincing foreign investors to infuse capital into Paglas Corp., which now employs more than 4,000 Muslims, some of them former secessionist rebels.

Since 1990, Arab, Chinese and European investors have poured in $78 million in investments in Datu Paglas, which used to be Maguindanao’s most hostile town the 1970s to the late 1980s.

Mastura said foreign-funded, non-government organizations and the United States Agency for International Development also pledged during the business congress their support in packaging the ARMM into a potential investment hub for both local and foreign investors. — John Unson