MinDA to organize trade mission to Middle East

DAVAO CITY – Seeing the Middle East as a potential huge market for Mindanao, the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) is organizing a trade and investment mission there any time this year.

Adrian Tamayo, head of MinDA’s publicity and promotion division, said the trade mission aims to present prospective investors the big-ticket projects that need funding in Mindanao.

During Tuesday's Biz Forum at SM Davao, Tamayo noted that the Middle East is a wealthy region using Islamic financing that has remained untapped by the Philippines as a good source for funding requirements of projects.

Tamayo said the construction of the Samal-Davao Bridge will be among the projects that will be presented during the investment mission, whose schedules are still being finalized.

He said the government of the People’s Republic of China had earlier expressed interest to fund the bridge, which will go through the bidding process.

The other projects that will be highlighted during the investment mission are the Tawi-Tawi Freeport project and the Pecong Free Port Agri Industrial Zone and Hadz Terminal within the Bangsamoro Corridor (Lanao del Sur) to make it an international and domestic gateway.

Tamayo said the proposed facilities will also become a logistics network and international and domestic gateways for food processing and manufacturing industries.

MinDA is also looking at the Trans Mindanao Railway System as another project to be showcased but in order to make it attractive “we still need to complete by phases the Willingness to Pay Study, Origin-Destination Study, and the Transport Development Study.”

He said: “We already completed these three studies for the Tagum-Davao-Digos phase of the Mindanao Railway System. The studies for Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro connection were done." (PNA)