COTABATO CITY –- Australian investors are keen to pour
in capital in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) which officials
said can be a “vote of confidence” amid the Marawi City crisis.
Lawyer Ishak Mastura, chair of the ARMM’s Regional
Board of Investments (RBOI-ARMM), said the Australian business interest in the
region came after RBOI joined in the recent Philippine Investment Mission and
Roadshow to Australia led by the Board of Investments (BOI) – Manila under its
Philippine Investment Promotion Plan (PIPP).
The PIPP serves as the BOI’s investment programming
platform composed of all investment promotion agencies. The investment
promotion agencies made a pitch to Australian investors in Sydney, Melbourne
and Brisbane in the second week of August.
In his letter Mastura, Eduard Alcordo, president of
the Australia Philippines Business Council APBC), said that there are at least
four prospective Australian investments in the ARMM.
One of them is Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs), a
firm active in mortgage lending, investment banking, fund management, property
investment, and high-tech investment. It has explored the feasibility of
developing REITS in the country.
Alcordo has asked one of its members and former
executive director of Public Private Partnership Center, Raj Palacios, to
contact ARMM with the view of signing a letter of intent (LOI) to invest in the
region.
A milk company is interested to put up milk storage
facilities in Mindanao, particularly ARMM since Mindanao is nearer to Australia
than Luzon. The Sun Valley (HK) Group is the proponent since they run dairy
farms in Australia.
Lionel Henderson, the director of Agriculture of the
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the
premier Australian Government funded research organization, was introduced to
Mastura during the investments roadshow.
Mastura said the CSIRO would be interested to work
with ARMM on this project if it has farmers with access to land, even land not
suitable for rice or staple foods. There may even be assistance on funding and
grants.
As witnessed by the Philippine investment mission team
to Australia, the SR Clean and Green Energy, an outfit whose owners are from
Tawi-Tawi Province in the ARMM, signed a LOI to explore future collaborations
during the team’s investment mission in Sydney.
The fourth investment is Halal chicken processing for
export from ARMM to Muslim Southeast Asian countries, the Middle East and
Australia. Australia, a non-Muslim country is among the leading exporter of
beef to the Middle East and live cows to Indonesia.
Regional Gov. Mujiv Hataman lauded RBOI-ARMM for
successfully enticing Australian investors despite the ongoing Marawi crisis.
“The interest of Australian businessmen to invest in
the ARMM is a clear vote of confidence in the stability of the region despite
the ongoing Marawi crisis, which the security sector has effectively confined
and contained to a small area,” Hataman said.
Recently, TierOne, Inc., a partly Australian-owned
telecommunications company registered with RBOI its PHP3 billion investments in
a third carrier for the region.
Australia is one of the biggest official development
assistance donors to the ARMM funding in particular the basic educational needs
of the region.
Recently, Australia offered to train Philippine
soldiers in urban warfare in view of the urban warfare terrain of Marawi City,
which used to be the ARMM’s largest city, since Australia is the only country
aside from the United States to have signed a Status of Forces Agreement with
the Philippines.(PNA)
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