Gov’t urges businesses to join Marawi rebuilding

Businesses should prepare for numerous investment opportunities that would open up as soon as Marawi City stages its big comeback, a trade official said.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said a rehabilitation plan for war-torn Marawi is on its way and investors should capitalize on the rebuilding of the city.

“Once this is all done, there will be much higher confidence level to areas close to Marawi. Even bigger in Marawi itself. A lot of activities will really kick off,” Lopez said.

“You know that there is a rehabilitation plan so a lot of opportunities in construction will be present. It will even have a spillover effect on the nearby areas,” he added.

The entire island of Mindanao has been placed under martial law since last May 23 after incidents of clashes between Filipino government troops and Islamist militants in Marawi City.

The Department of Public Works and Highways earlier said some P20 billion has been initially earmarked for the rehabilitation of Marawi.

For its part, the Department of Trade and Industry is looking at providing P10 million in livelihood and development assistance as part of Marawi’s rehabilitation program.

Lopez said the amount will be on top the financial assistance entrepreneurs in Marawi could access through the “Pondo sa Pagbabago at Pag-asenso” (P3) program.

The P3 is a financing scheme intended to help the underprivileged Filipino entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses and put an end the illegal “5-6” lending scheme.

“You need financing for those small vendors there so that markets there can return to life. We can easily put more funds there and tap microfinancing institutions to do the lending so that trade in the area could immediately be revived. Many of them are traders,” Lopez said.