Investments up amid ‘all-out offensive’

POLLOC PORT, Maguindanao — The ongoing military offensive against a breakaway rebel group in this province does not scare away investors, unlike during the all-out war in nearby Camp Abubakar in 2000, government officials and corporate representatives said in a meeting here Friday.Lawyer Mimbalawag Mangutara Jr., regional port manager, said as the province’s gateway to local and foreign trade investments, the port has entered into new lease agreements this month with companies putting in fresh capital for long-term business ventures.Saying life must go on” despite the conflict, Mangutara and Rob Scott, corporate executive officer of the Iron Blaze Petroleum, Inc., laid the corner stone Friday morning for the construction of a seven-million liter capacity oil depot at the southwestern section of the port.Lawyer Ishak Mastura, chairman of the Regional Board of Investments (RBOI) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), explained that investors have not backed out” of their established investments in the region, even after the tragedy in Mamasapano where 44 Police Special Action Commandos, 18 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas and five civilians were killed.Mangutara, also head of the Regional Economic Zone Authority (Reza), and Scott said the regional port management and the Blaze Petroleum, Inc. have entered into a 15-year lease agreement for the depot, which forms part of the firm’s $10 million investment program on oil trade.Lawyer Rasol Mitmug Jr., who represented ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman, said the government and the private sector have put substance to what used to be a mere commitment of partnership and trade cooperation, often expressed in the past through signing of memorandums of understanding.Mastura said the Iron Blaze Petroleum, Inc. had imported some 260,000 liters of light crude from Sabah in Borneo Island in December 2013.Speaking for Hataman, Mitmug said it was the first time the ARMM government put up its share of the venture by funding the operation of Reza, by which attract investors with packages of incentives, including tariff reduction and tax holidays for the first three to five years of the investing groups’ operation.Mangutara said the port’s revenue has increased 420 percent from P 690,000.00 in 2013 to P 3.6 million in 2014.Mastura said the Mamasapano incident even triggered curiosity to some capitalists, who have discovered the agriculture potential of the area, following the January 25 incident which residents, officials and business groups deemed tragic.At P 863 million in the first quarter, the ARMM has exceeded its 2015 target of P 500 million in aggregate worth of investments, according to the RBOI.Fresh capital infusions into the region would come from the P741.8 million nickel-ore mining project ofthe ChanC Mining, Inc.inPanglima Sugala in Tawi-Tawi, and the P121.25 million petroleum depot project of Tawi-Tawian Petroleum Trading Corporation, also in Panglima Sugala, Mastura said.The investing companies’ projection could go as high as 1,000,000 MT of nickel extraction every year, executives said.RBOI Director Monir Dumama said the Lam San Company, under its CEO Danny Lu, has bought the local stevedoring firm, which used to be owned by the PTC (Peptalk Investment and Development Corporation Tident Development Corporation, and Central Mindanao Investment Corporation).Dumama named the other investor groups as Bangsamoro Oil and Fuels, under Dr. Amor Pendaliday, Fast Cargo Logistic Corporation, the Power-Ups Ventures and ABSCOR Corp.Pete Marquez, an official of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Central Mindanao, said the current business climate redeems for the region its true state of economic investment,” as opposed to talks of war and the supposed failure of the peace process.