CCCI prexy plans to merge programs

CEBU, Philippines - With too many advocacies at hand, the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry plans to consolidate its programs and re-focus in order to achieve solid results.

CCCI president Ma. Teresa Chan said that she is going to meet with the chamber's officers and board members to present this idea, while with too many ongoing and pending programs, it is hard for the chamber to monitor the movement and results of the advocacies, as well as projects.

At this moment, she said she cannot identify which advocacies or programs have to temporarily take a backseat and which advocacies need immediate action and strong monitoring.

In August this year, Chan announced that the chamber is going to intensify its advocacy to push both national and local government unit (LGU) to push for infrastructure expansion especially those projects that support to attract investments for manufacturing.

Initially, Chan said one of the chamber's focuses now is to appeal to the government for the acceleration of the planned projects for infrastructure developments, particularly the implementation of new international port.

According to Chan, the port congestion problems in the ports of Cebu and Manila call for a bold move to kick off the implementation of more projects that have been in the government's pipeline in order to cope with the tougher competition and attract big manufacturing investors to the Philippines.

CCCI is currently coordinating with the Cebu Provincial government as well as the concerned agencies in the national level for Cebu to realize the plan to have an international port of global standards in terms of size and facilities.

"CCCI is advocating for infrastructure [expansion] precisely attracting the manufacturing investments," Chan said adding that following the realization of the Cebu new international airport, the next move will be towards making a large new sea-port of Cebu.

She said the growth of the Philippine economy today is largely fueled by the strong consumption-based demand. It is high time to strengthen the other leg, which is the long term investment of manufacturing that will employ a huge number of people.

Chan said CCCI will formally announce in the next few days the identified programs and advocacies that will be given utmost attention and focus by the chamber under her leadership.— Ehda M. Dagooc (FREEMAN)