Monday, October 13, 2008 Big global event to draw world leaders to Manado
DIRECT flights to Manado from Davao City are expected to balloon many times over in May next year during the 2009 World Ocean Conference to be held in that northeastern Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Considered the world's biggest event to take place next year in Indonesia, the global conference is expected to draw some 10,000 international delegates from all over the world, accompanied by over 2,000 journalists, according to Peter Lavina, chair of the committee on trade, commerce, and industry of the City Council.
Lavina revealed that presidents of the world's most powerful nations like the US, China, Russia, Japan, Great Britain, Australia; heads of states; kings; queens; as well as top scientists and environmentalists will tackle wide-ranging topics on saving the world's oceans, protecting coral reefs, climate change, pollution, disappearing forests, and global warming.
Lavina, one of the most active advocates of the direct Davao-Manado flight, urged the government and various industry groups here to prepare for this big global event in Manado which is only an hour's flying time from this southern city.
"Let's take full advantage of this rare global event -- it's going to attract thousands of international delegates and many of them will use this shorter, direct route from Davao to Manado instead of the longer route from Jakarta," Lavina said.
Direct flights from Davao to Manado was revived three months ago after the Indonesian airline Sriwijaya Air, which used to ply the route, gave up its operations late last year due to lack of air passengers. A new Indonesian airline, Wings Air, took over the suspended route and revived the air traffic between the two neighboring cities. The route was established some years ago by the economic grouping of BIMP-Eaga (Brunei Indonesia Malaysia Philippines- East Asean Growth Area).
Trade Undersecretary Merly Cruz said this is exactly what the BIMP-Eaga group anticipated when the four countries agreed to establish direct air and sea linkages with each other to promote trade, tourism, and investments in this part of the world.
"With these direct air and sea links, we're now seeing the growth of more trade deals, more tour packages, more investments, and more venture partnerships between the four Asean countries," said Cruz, who also chairs the BIMP-EAGA Senior Ministers Meetings in the region.
Daniel Jacobs, Wings Air district engineer for Manado, said more and more passengers from Davao are filling up the seats of their 52-seater jetprop aircraft which flies weekly to Manado.
"Our flights are mostly fully booked -- if we can't fill up the seats, we can always take in more cargo," Jacobs told reporters.
