Cebu needs province-wide investment arm – Valiente

CEBU, Philippines - While Cebu City has yet to resolve the issue hounding the Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC), it has to create a province-wide investment arm to continue selling Cebu as an investment destination in the global landscape.

Economist and business leader Efren Valiente told The Freeman yesterday in an interview that there should be a collaborative effort between the Cebu City and Cebu Provincial governments to make a joint investment promotions arm, as CIPC is currently non-operating due to lack of funding and the mass resignation of its board members.

Valiente was one of the original board members of the CIPC after it was created years ago, he said that Cebu needs to sustain its international investment promotion effort, while there are still a lot of industrial economic zones needed to be filled, and the province needs more employment generating investments.

“With the mass resignation of the its board members, CIPC cannot continue its mandate, and also considering the fact that the Cebu City council has stopped releasing funding to the agency,” said Valiente, adding that impact though is not immediate.

The original mandate of CIPC, he said is to sell Cebu as  province, specially the metro cities, including Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City. However, when these cities stopped to provide funding for the center, the promotion was focused only to sell and promote Cebu City, and its investment destinations like the 300-hectare South Road Properties.

He said the original plan of SRP was to be completed by 1999, and generate at least 80,000 employment. But, the target was not met, and along the way, positioning of SRP has been compromised, and hitting 80,000 employment target is not expected to happen.

Cebu as a province, he said has a lot to offer. An establishment of a province-wide promotion bureau is crucial, added Valiente who also once was the president of Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI).

“Let us say that the Mactan Economic Zone 1 and 2 are already full. But other economic and industrial zones, like in Balamban, and Naga, and others are still unoccupied,” he stressed.

In an earlier report, Sabino Dapat, CIPC treasurer, and one of five officials who tendered resignation said that CIPC will continue to function as a foundation duly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to Dapat, the mere resignation of the five board members, including him, does not dissolve the CIPC.

The Freeman tried to contact CIPC managing director Joel Mari Yu yesterday, but was not available for comment.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama earlier said he doesn’t intend to dissolve CIPC.

But he said he couldn’t release the city’s 2013 assistance of P5.4 million unless the board members are able to settle their “internal conflict.”

In a report, Dapat was quoted recalling  an instance where CIPC found it difficult to receive aid from the city because of opposition by the Commission on Audit (COA).

COA said then there was conflict of interest in the city’s allocation of aid to the CIPC because then Mayor Tomas Osmeña, one of the CIPC incorporators, was also a stockholder.

Over the years, CIPC has been instrument in bringing investors to Cebu, not only those that locate within the Cebu City, but the entire province.

It was only recently that the center has focused its promotional efforts to sell the Cebu City developed SRP, along with facilitating investors’ inquiries like those outsourcing and tourism related investments. /JOB (FREEMAN)