News & Blogs

by Prix D Banzon

Davao City — The IT-BPO stakeholders of Davao City are taking the challenge of attracting ICT locators here.

Wit Holganza, president of ICT Davao Inc. Has asked the private and public sector partners to put their acts together in addressing this challenge.

She said they welcome the challenge of increasing the City’s competitiveness by working on improving their performance in the area of business environment and risk management in order for the city to attract locators.

“We need to act together in improving the overall imagery of Davao City as a safe IT-BPO destination by providing substantive evidence to counter the negative perception on the Mindanao region,” she said.

She said doing such they can continue to attract more ICT investments, create more jobs and improve Davao City’s economy.

The other locations that made it to the Top 10 Next Wave Cities for IT-BPO were: #1 Metro Laguna, #2 Metro Cavite, #3 Iloilo, #4 Davao City, #5 Bacolog, #6 Angeles-Clark-Mabalacat, #7 Baliuag-Marilao-Meycauyan, #8 Cagayan de Oro, #9 Malolos/Calumpit, #10 Lipa. (PIA)

Prix D Banzon

Davao City — Key players in the business sector of Mindanao showed interest in developing local investments to spur the growth of the economy amidst the global crisis.

Mindanao Business Council executive director Ednar Dayanghirang at the Kapehan Sa Dabaw on Monday at Cafe Rysus of SM City Davao he said as a result of the 6th Investment Conference held at Marco Polo Davao last week, the business leaders decided to bring the iCon to Caraga Region next year.

He said bringing events like the iCon to other places in Mindanao would allow them to gather as many businessmen in the area.

The three main agricultural products that they will continue to propagate around Mindanao are rubber, pangasius (catfish) and coffee.

He said just like in the 6th iCon, these products will be discussed thoroughly to prospective business partners in the locality and in so doing they would be able to catch the interests of these farm producers within their region.

He cited for instance that with the forging of a Memorandum of Agreement on the propagation of pangasius with three big corporations operating in Mindanao, this project will given enough technical support.

These three big corporations are San Miguel Foods, Inc. (SMFI), Vitarich Corporation and RDEX Foods International Philippines, Inc.

He said during the last iCon close to 500 businessmen raised queries on the three specific agri products.

He said their continuing advocacy to small and medium entrepreneurs could set the direction to product agri product that has high demand both in the international and local markets. (PIA)

Davao City — UN has declared 2008 as the international year of the ocean. This has been the campaign of United Nations to raise public awareness about the value of the ocean. Threats concerning the ocean are not limited with overfishing and marine life extinction but also the overwhelming problem in ocean pollution and the lack of waste management. The lack of funding for the preservation programs limits the implementation of these programs.

Tourism in not exempted from this dilemma since the environmental quality of coastal areas and tourism services are also greatly affected. Because of this the Department of Tourism will be conducting a Coastal Forum on December 10, 2008 at Punta Del Sol Resort. The forum aims to discuss three main issues: Users Fee to help augment limited resources, waste management and Safety and security.

This forum shall renew the cooperation among key players from public and private sectors including national agencies, local governments and resort owners. The participation from these sectors are vital in strengthening and improving cooperative activities, including the sharing of human resources, experience, data, instrument development and facilities.

Further, the spirit of active cooperation will be espoused through the payment of user’s fee. Implementing such directive will help fund the programs on ocean preservation. There shall also be action planning at the end of the activity in order to follow through the various concerns that deal with ocean preservation and the improvement of the tourism industry in the coastal areas.

Hence, the FORUM shall educate the key players on policies and develop a public-private partnership that deals the concerns of limited resources, waste management and safety and security. For more details regarding the event, you may call the DOT XI at 221-6955 or 221-6955 and look for Ms. Eden David or Jeg Gorra. (DOT/PIA XI)