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DAVAO CITY—A fresh investment of P200 million came this early
from three companies, two of them in food processing, as
the city’s investment monitoring body has set a target
of P2 billion in investments for the rest of the year.
The new investments came from Microtel Inn and Suites, which
launched last year its P100-milllion 50-room project in
the Damosa area, and from a food processing firm and a
service provider in the food industry.
The last two projects were already in their construction
stage, said Roberto Teo, chief of the
Davao
City Investment Promotions Center.
Although Microtel launched its project last year, it invested
about P80 million this year in the continuing phase of
its construction that was expected to last for the next
eight months more.
Teo said many other inquiries were made, mostly from Korean
nationals, and these were in tourism, such as hotels,
inns and restaurants, and in education, mostly in
English-language programs.
The prospects for a serious investment though were nil as Teo
said that “they wanted to wholly own the project which
we cannot give, because we would violate the
Constitution”. The Philippine Constitution restricts
foreign ownership to 60 percent.
He said that Koreans “definitely know that we have this law
but I would understand them because some of them would
complain that their Filipino partners were extorting
money from them.”
“But this is not happening only in
Davao. You would hear this thing elsewhere,” he said.
Teo expects the bulk of new investments to come from the
food-related sector “because of our agriculture industry
that needs support, and it would be good due to the
added value.”
Davao’s
economy depends largely on banana exports, although it
also earns from its mango and coconut products.
He said his office would like to see investments breach the
P2-billion mark.
In 2005, the city earned a total of P112 billion in
investments and taxes, with new investments reaching
P1.4 billion. Last year, investments surpassed the
P1.7-billion target by P47 million. |
