Singaporean, Malaysian investors to send business missions to Davao City

DAVAO CITY — Singaporean and Malaysian businessmen will visit Davao City next year to explore opportunities for investments in Mindanao positioned as a Muslim friendly destination in the country, an official of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) said.

MinDA public relations officer Dr. Adrian Tamayo said the potential investors will reciprocate the initiatives of 24man delegation from Mindanao which visited Singapore and Kuala Lumpur last September 24 to 29.

“We need to prepare our industries for return missions and make our industries and local establishments be ready for potential investments,” he said.

There must be better infrastructure, more interconnectivity, and more halal-accredited hotels and restaurants, to convince foreign investors to do business in Mindanao, he said.

“If you want them to come and come again, we have to transfer them with ease and comfort. One concern raised by the Malaysians was that, are we ready with our Halal establishments. We are saying therefore hopefully this will convert into investments on the part of Muslims to develop halal resCOTABATO taurants,” he said.

He said the five-day business missions were conducted to “create an impression that there is a good number of passengers,” to sustain operations of airline companies servicing the DavaoMalaysia-Davao and Davao-SingaporeDavao air routes.

The existing international flights through the F. Bangoy International airport are being serviced by Silk Air (Singapore) and AirAsia (Kuala Lumpur).

He said potential investors will be coming over to Mindanao to look for investment opportunities in agriculture and tourism. During the return visits next year, he said they will pitch to Signaporean and Malaysian investors the available economic zones, products, and services in Mindanao.