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Thursday, December 09, 2004
Palau to strengthen biz ties with city
By Jenny Molbog-Mendoza
THE State of Palau is expected to strengthen economic ties with Davao City, a move touted to bring a lot of benefits to the city.
Palau, a small state with a population of around 20,000, of which 6,000 are Filipinos, is just a two-day trip from Davao City by sea and one hour and 20 minutes by plane.
Moses Uludong, a former senator and now the publisher of Tia Belau, the first Palau-based newspaper, said during the Club 888 forum held at Marco Polo Hotel that Davao City can offer a lot of products and services for the people of Palau.
Uludong said the Palau government is even planning to amend one of their laws within the next two months just to accommodate the idea of importing agricultural products from Davao City.
As of now, Uludong said, they could not import any agricultural product since their law prohibits it.
Uludong said the first move that the Palau government is doing is to establish direct sea and air links from Palau to Davao City or vise versa.
"Our cargo ship called Eurasia Pacific Line has already started its trip last Monday. This would regularly travel routes from Palau to Davao and Davao to Palau every 15 days. This has a capacity of 100 to 150 containers. While our airline called Palau Micronesia Air is now on a test flight. It has a capacity of 157 passengers," he said.
Uludong said the Eurasia Pacific Line has initially shipped a total of 21 containers of cement from Davao City to Palau on Monday.
Before their "discovery" that Davao City has a lot to offer, citizens of Palau used to bring their sick loved ones to Manila or Hawaii, and sent their students to the United States.
But after this discovery, people of Palau are starting to send their patients and students here in the City.
"If we will have weekly flight to Davao, we will bring more tourists here. I see a bright future to this," he said.
Uludong said that their citizens are most interested to import construction materials and foodstuff from Davao City.
(December 9, 2004 issue)
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