Leyte traders send wish list to Palace

TACLOBAN CITY — The Leyte Chamber of Commerce and Industry is seeking the help of Malacañang in expanding the Leyte Industrial Development Estate (LIDE), establishing the economic zone in this city, and boosting tourism.

Oliver Cam, an officer of LCCI, said he presented the proposal to Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Diño during Diño's visit to the province last week.

“In line with the government’s thrust of countryside industrial and agricultural development, especially in our region, where we are primary agricultural and fishery dependent, we are really pushing for several key developments,” Cam said.

On the expansion of LIDE, the chamber hopes to bring in more “inclusive types” of industry.

Cam said the copper smelting plant in the LIDE is not inclusive “simply because they import everything they export it all out.”

Although the plant hires local labor, Cam said the chamber wants to convince more industry to come in and establish operation in LIDE to generate more jobs "not only for Leyte residents, but also for Samar people."

LIDE, a 425-hectare special economic zone located in Isabel, Leyte, was established in 1978.

It is the home of two major industries - Philippine Associated Smelting & Refining Corp and the Philippine Phosphate Fertilizer Corp.

Setting up an economic zone in the northern part of Tacloban is a long-term solution that will provide great impact to more than 80,000 city dwellers, according to LCCI.

The northern part of the city has been tagged as permanent relocation sites for families of supertyphoon Yolanda survivors who had moved out of danger zones.

The National Housing Authority, along with private donors, are building 16,000 housing units in the sites.

“The absence of livelihood is one of the challenges why it is hard to move these people to that area. There is no job in the north, but only houses. If you are moving people, you should not only focus on housing, but on holistic approach. That is why we are really pushing for the establishments of economic zone in that area,” Cam said.

“These are all medium to long term projects that we are looking at, but this will have a great and long lasting impact to the region if we are able to diversify this type of infrastructure, in fact more resilient to our economy,” he added.

LCCI is also pushing for support for the region's tourism industry which was able to recover immediately from the devastation of Yolanda in 2013.

Cam, however said funding for the major tourism rehabilitation program remains a problem.

DOT Eastern Visayas reported that after the supertyphoon, tourism turned out to be the region's most resilient industry.

From 731,000 in 2013, tourist arrivals in 2014 reached 964,000, a 31.9 percent increase. In 2015, tourist arrivals in the region reached 1.099 million, with a total 19.4 billion tourist receipt.

“That is why we are really struggling with our tourism effort because our office of tourism here is not given the budget. They just become creative in trying to address the needs of our tourism industry here in the region,” Cam said. (PNA)