Davao mayor calls 2017 an interesting year

Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio has marked 2017 with many ups and downs, yet an interesting year for the business community. (PNA Photo)

DAVAO CITY — Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio has marked 2017 with many ups and downs, yet an interesting year for the business community.

Although the martial law declaration took a temporary tip on the booming tourism industry, the city mayor still looks forward to a better year starting off with the renewal of 40,499 business permits.

As of January 23, the mayor said the City Treasurer’s Office already collected P1.2 billion from business renewals. This was 36 percent higher compared to 2017.

Davao City also has its hands full with P270 billion value of investments. And, the city also breached the two million mark in tourism arrivals.

Over and above these figures, Duterte-Carpio said Davao City also earned as the third most competitive city in highly-urbanized category in the country city and many other awards last year.

These are not made possible without the strong support of the DCCCII as the private sector partner of the city government, according to the mayor.

She cited the support to the holding of the successful Kadayawan Festival under a martial law period, the 43rd Davao Investment Conference, and others then under the former DCCCII president Ronald Go.

Duterte-Carpio looks forward to the continued partnership between the DCCCII and the city government which aims to attract more investments and make the city more economically viable.

2018 Plans

The mayor detailed her administration’s plans for 2018 that needed the support of the private sector.

First is the review of the Davao City Investment Code to update the existing incentive tax packages and see if the 10 priority investment areas are still relevant.

Duterte-Carpio said the review of the Code was being assisted by Lipana Company, a local arm of PriceWaterhouse Coopers.

This is the first review since the Code is amended in 2012 to make it relevant to the recent developments in the city’s economic landscape and responsive to its development directions.

A feature of the amended code is the provision of longer incentives for investors who invest in any of the priority investments areas in districts of Calinan, Baguio, Marilog, and Paquibato.

At present, the city is offering investors three years business tax exemption and two years real property tax exemptions as long as it falls under the city’s 10 Priority Investment areas.

She asked the business group to take an active role in the review because their inputs were necessary.

Second is the Traffic.
Duterte-Carpio bared that this year the city allocated P370 million for road development projects focusing on the farm-to-market roads.

The road development project will be a joint undertaking of the city government, Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the Department of Agriculture, and the three congressional offices.
Duterte-Carpio said these projects were aimed to ease up traffic.

She announced that the bypass road from Ulas-Puan-Toril already opened to traffic and another bypass road from Bacaca-Diversion-Maa slaughterhouse is set to open. There is also the Bunawan-Cabantian-Buhangin bypass road and the coastal road.

Another project aimed at easing traffic and providing the riding public with more convenient transport system was the High Priority Bus System (HPBS) which would start mid-2019.

The HPBS is being assisted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and all the paper works will be finalized anytime soon. The mayor sees the start of the HPBS project in mid of 2019 or beyond 2019 elections.
The mayor wants to prioritize the transportation system of the city.

“I feel if I will not push this it will not be given priority whoever will be the mayor and we will not improve our mass transport system,” she said in vernacular.

The HPBS will provide a safer mass transport system for the riding public that will require less travel time and less traffic congestion.

The City Transport and Traffic Management Office is also planning to review the Local Public Transport Route Plan.

This will form part of the development of the Comprehensive Transportation and Traffic Management Plan for the city.

“We need this to move forward in transportation and traffic management here in Davao City,” she said.

On peace and order and security, the mayor announced the city government and the Davao City Police Office were working for an expanded police which called for additional police personnel to cope with the growing population of the city.

The city’s population stands at 1.6 million at last count. The population of the city could be more, Duterte-Carpio said.