INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES. Foreign Trade Service Corps (FTSC) of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) led by Supervising Undersecretary Rowel Barba (center) gets a briefing about various investment potentials and opportunities of Iloilo City on Tuesday (March 5, 2019). (Photo courtesy of DTI 6)
ILOILO CITY -- The Foreign Trade Service Corps (FTSC) of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) conducted a two-day visit to Iloilo City to determine its development and look into areas where it can extend support for.
“We visited Iloilo to basically know more about the developments in the area so we can assist them promote the province and the city for investments and maybe possible trade with other countries,” said FTSC Supervising Undersecretary Rowel Barba in an interview on Wednesday.
The team that was also joined by FTSC Executive Director Emmanuel Ang and Trade Services Officers first visited the city government on Tuesday and met with the business groups in the metropolis at the Casa Real the following day.
Barba said they saw a big potential in the real estate business in this part of the country.
“Prices of real estate have increased tremendously and there is not enough office space for BPO (business process outsourcing). But we hope the developers will be able to come up with additional office space the soonest possible time so more companies can come. That’s for the services sector,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said that “a lot more improvement is needed, especially in terms of production” in the manufacturing sector. He hoped that more products will be produced from this part of the country to be exported abroad.
“We hope to work with the private sector and other government agencies so we can identify a possible winner from the region,” he added.
Meantime, Ritchel Gavan, head of the Iloilo City Local Economic Investment Promotions Office in an interview said the FTSC has committed to help market this highly-urbanized city overseas.
“They checked how they can extend help to Iloilo. They promised to involve Iloilo in their investment promotions abroad,” she said.
Gavan said that there was no particular investment area that was discussed during their meeting but having them will open more opportunities because they have offices around the world.
However, in the field of Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO), the city government wanted call center companies “ to set up their main offices here and not just branches,” she added.
Also, they hoped that the Iloilo Startup Founders Circle be linked with potential clients.
Meanwhile, the first collaboration they would have will be the Guanzhou “Maritime Silk Road” expo slated this April 18-21 in China. Iloilo City will be sending a delegation of designers, producers and local businessmen.
“The role of the FTSC is to conduct market matching; they will find suppliers for businessmen, and market for our supplier. That will be our first collaboration with the FTSC as an output of their visit yesterday,” Gavan disclosed.
Gavan added that the support of the FTSC is vital in reaching out to more market potentials abroad.
“This time it’s not just the LGU (local government unit) and the local private sector that promote and reach out abroad to introduce our products. We have the support of the national government through DTI-FTSC,” she added.
FTSC is part of the Trade and Investment Promotions Group of DTI. It is composed of trade representatives of commercial posts of DTI around the world. (PNA)
