Chinese envoy hails passage of OLBARMM

DAVAO CITY – China’s Consul General in Davao City Li Lin said Mindanao faces a rare opportunity for growth with the signing of the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (OLBARMM) and under the proposed federal form of government being pushed by the Duterte administration.

Speaking during the Mindanao Business Conference 2018 at the Big 8 Corporate Hotel in Tagum City on Thursday, Lin said the OLBARMM will be an important element to provide a safer and more secured environment for Chinese investors while federalism would give local governments the flexibility in attracting new businesses.

“Safety and security is very important element for a place to develop healthily. The Chinese people, in the last 40 years of reform and opening, have the deepest experience that stability is of vital importance for economic progress,” he added.

Lin arrived in Davao last April 2018 to start his tour-of-duty at the Chinese Consulate Office here.

Lin said he was delighted President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed last July 27 the OLBARMM that would restore peace, security, and stability that would eventually convince foreign investors to come to the areas of Mindanao that are suffering from armed conflicts.

He also vowed to help promote various business opportunities in various parts of Mindanao and the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-MalaysiaPhilippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) to Chinese investors.

Mindanao and Palawan are among the BIMP-EAGA focus areas, along with the entire sultanate of Brunei Darussalam; provinces of Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, West Papua and Papua in Indonesia; states of Sabah and Sarawak and the federal territory of Labuan in Malaysia; and Mindanao and the province of Palawan in the Philippines.

The Chinese diplomat said the proposed shift to federal charter would be Mindanao’s another advantage because local governments will not only have a fair share of the country’s wealth but also allow them to craft more flexible policies to attract foreign investments.

“Maybe, it will be a good news for overseas investors to come because local governments may compete with each other to offer more preferential policies to attract foreign capital, foreign investors like what the Chinese government at local level had been doing in the past 40 years. We compete with each other in offering tax holidays to new companies to establish in China,” he said. (Antonio L. Colina IV)