BUTUAN CITY, Philippines - The Caraga Region or Region 13 is eyeing at least P4 billion in investments in 2011 which it hopes to materialize, and beyond, it was learned Wednesday. This developed after the Region 13 office here of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI 13) through its Investment Marketing Facilitation (IMF) unit shared the information during the agency's assessment of its preliminary annual accomplishment early this week. The investment prospects level is almost double in the reported 2010's (P2.6 billion) actualized impacted by the agency. Prospects in the agricultural sector account for 87 percent, power generation - between three to five percent, and aquaculture - about two percent, and a small mining project. This, however, does not include the bigger mining projects already reported to be in the pipeline. Should all these prospects materialize, Agusan del Sur is expected to host half of all the identified potential investments coming from palm oil production and processing and the mineral extraction project in the Bunawan area. It was gathered that this city may get about 22 percent to come from the aqua/agricultural sector (about P770 million), and information and technology-related investments (about P120 million). While Surigao del Sur hopefully will get its share from the setting up of a Cavendish banana plantation and processing facility. On the other hand, Surigao del Norte is also picking up when the multi-million-dollar tuna processing plant will rise in 2011, the DTI report said.
Agusan del Norte investments are expected to come from the agricultural sector and the planned facility investments from the power generation sector. "We are only talking of businesses that pass our office and this does not include other business investments recorded by other agencies that are burgeoning at various parts in the region," said DTI 13 Director Brielgo O. Pagaran on Wednesday. He added that several business investments also noted by other line agencies of the government like in the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), Department of Tourism (DoT), and Department of Agriculture. In a related development, the region-wide effort of the DTI in the Caraga Region on trade promotion has generated domestic sales of P411.41 million for the year 2010. Sales came mostly from financing facilitation and market matching and facilitation. The rest came from trade fairs and "pasalubong centers," and inbound selling missions. Caraga producers who joined international trade fairs obtained sales which accounted for 85 percent of the total sales from trade fairs.
