PH, Indonesia to launch new trading route
The Philippines and Indonesia will launch on Sunday a new trade route linking Mindanao and Sulawesi, increasing market access while lowering cost in an initiative that cuts travel time from five weeks to just eight days.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said that President Duterte and Indonesian President Joko Widodo would lead the Asean Roll-on Roll-off (Ro-Ro) project in Davao on April 30.
DTI said the voyage would start from Kudos Port in Sasa, Davao City, passing the General Santos International Port and the final port of destination in Bitung, Manado, Indonesia.
“The Asean Ro-Ro, particularly the Davao-GenSan-Bitung trade corridor, is a legacy project of the Philippines and one of its the major deliverables for this year’s Asean chairmanship and in commemoration of Asean’s golden anniversary,” said Trade Assistant Secretary Arturo Boncato.
The route is seen to provide economic opportunities for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in light of an easier market access. DTI said that there could also be joint tourism promotion, direct air linkages and increased investment flows as some of the possible fruits of the new route.
This connectivity would benefit Filipino producers in Mindanao and Palawan, linking their markets to Bitung and the rest of Indonesia. This route forms part of the BIMP-EAGA, which stands for the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area.
“The President has a tall order to bring development in the South and once emphasized the need to put particular attention to sub-regional mechanisms, especially the BIMP-EAGA given its crucial role in pursuing development initiatives at the grassroots,” said Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez.
Lopez said he hoped the Asean would adopt a similar initiative, noting that the new shipping link would later bring in the “invigoration of trade and influx of investments.”
Launched more than two decades ago, the BIMP-EAGA aims to speed up economic development in areas that are geographically far from their respective national capitals, but are still in a strategic location with resource-rich regions in the four member-countries of the initiative.
The BIMP-EAGA covers the entire sultanate of Brunei Darussalam; the provinces of Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and West Papua of Indonesia; the states of Sabah and Sarawak and the federal territory of Labuan in Malaysia, and Mindanao and the province of Palawan in the Philippines. —ROY STEPHEN C. CAÑIVEL
