DEVELOPMENTS - First Mindanao trade congress slated in Dipolog

Sunstar.com, (September 15, 2006 issue)

LOCAL and foreign investors and other stakeholders are to converge in Dipolog City for the first-ever Mindanao Trade, Investment, and Tourism Congress (MTITC).

The MTITC, which will be held for two days from October 5 to 6 this year, will bring together key business leaders, government officials, local and foreign investors, and entrepreneurs from Mindanao to discuss trade, investment, and tourism potentials.

Dipolog Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) president Edgar Bagarinao said the MTITC aims to provide a better understanding of Mindanao as a super region, realizing its potentials in trade, investment, and tourism.

The Federation of Business Chambers of Mindanao Foundation Inc. (FBC-Mindanao) organizes the conduct of the two-day MTITC.

Bagarinao said the MTITC will also focus on Mindanao's strategic location within the East Asian region considering that Mindanao has the geographic advantage and potentials to be a transshipment center of trade in the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-East Asian Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga).

Among the invited resource persons to the MTITC are: president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) Ambassador Donald Dee; acting chairman of the Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCo) Undersecretary Virgilio Leyretana; Corporate Affairs advisor of TVI Resource Development Philippines John Ridsdel; founding director and chairman of the Board of Directors of BIMP East Asean Business Council Vicente Paterno; Senator Manuel Villar, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Embassy of Canada Peter Sutherland; country Representative of the Asia Foundation Steve Rood; Tengku Datuk (Dr) Zainal Adlin, chairman of Sabah Tourism Board; Tourism Secretary Ace Durano; and Congressman Edgar Chatto, chairman of the committee on tourism of the House of Representatives.