Friday, May 09, 2008 Economic forum as venue for change
CEBU is not just an island in the Pacific. It is an economic powerhouse.
Accounting for 46 percent of exports in the Visayas and Mindanao and 17 percent of foreign tourism in the Philippines, it is the main driver of growth in Central Visayas, the fifth largest economy in the country. It is against the backdrop of Cebu’s unrelenting drive to succeed that the Sun.Star Economic Forum now presents itself as a proactive partner.
The Sun.Star Economic Forum (SEF) aims to become a catalyst for Cebu’s economic prosperity.
A deliberative and advocacy body working for the growth and development of Cebu and Central Visayas, the SEF relies primarily on the Sun.Star newspaper and website for the dissemination of its advocacies. It is in this spirit that we begin today a twice-monthly column.
Founded in 2004 by Sun.Star Publishing Inc. chairman and president Jesus B. Garcia Jr. as a resource of information on Cebu’s business environment, the SEF counts the National Economic and Development Authority 7, Department of Trade and Industry and Cebu’s major universities among its partners in the generation of concrete data on Cebu and the region useful for business planning.
But beyond this, the SEF is also an advocate for policies that will improve the investment climate in Cebu and Central Visayas. The framework of growth and development that it advocates for the region is not limited to the growth of business.
In its first four years, the SEF took the form of annual conferences that served as the venue for the discussion of issues and opportunities in the power, water, information technology and tourism industries, among others, featuring high-level speakers from the government and private sectors.
These speakers included Senate President Manuel Villar Jr., Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Monetary Board Member Vicente Valdepeñas, Securities and Exchange Commission chairperson Lilia Bautista, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno, Metropolitan Cebu Water District chairman Juan Saul Montecillo and Visayan Electric Co. chief operating officer Alfonso Aboitiz.
The 4th Sun.Star Economic Forum, held on Aug. 23, 2007 at Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, marked the SEF’s first push into advocacy.
With tourism as its theme, that forum saw local tourism stakeholders bringing forward the issues that they said needed to be addressed for Cebu to meet its goal of doubling foreign tourism arrivals to one million in five years, the target set by Tourism Secretary Joseph Durano.
In the next column, we will reveal the resolutions that resulted from the lively exchanges at the 4th Sun.Star Economic Forum.
The whole idea of this column is to provide a regular report on the progress of the SEF’s advocacies, outlining both the accomplishments and the difficulties in its journey toward the creation of a more investor-friendly Cebu and Central Visayas.
(CTL)
(For comments, e-mail to economicforum@sunstar.com.ph)
