By Ace June Rell S. Perez

FOR Mindanao not to lag behind from the rest of the country in economic growth and development, some government policies and regulations, lack of competition, protection of property rights and among other vital issues in spurring investment and job creation need to be addressed.

This is an initial result of the recent committee meeting conducted by Joint Enabling Secretariat-Inclusive Business in Mindanao (JES-Ibim) with focus agenda on Mindanao Jobs Report(MJR), led by World Bank Philippines, Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and Mindanao Development Authority (Minda). The meeting was well-represented by the government officials and business sectors in various industries.

Based on the WB’s data, some of the jobs challenges are complex regulations and restricting policies, lack of competition, insecure property ownership and lack of investments. These lead to low agricultural productivity and weak manufacturing resulting to job informality, poverty and out-migration.

Mindanao posted a real gross domestic product (GDP) growth from 2010 to 2013 of only 5 percent compared with Luzon’s 5.3 and Visayas’ 5.2.

However, Minda Undersecretary Janet M. Lopoz commented that as she recognized the need of regulatory environment to ensure conducive environment for investments to grow and for jobs to be generated, she suggested to look into current business models that are capable of generating jobs amidst all the constraints.

“In a recent discussion with the enterprises in Mindanao, we discussed that we can look into current models where we can already create big impact especially on job creation,” she said.

“We should look onto how we can intensify this kind of business models that can work on the current constraints in job generation and what kind of reforms that is doable within the time frame that we help scale up this time the business models,” Lopoz added.

“While we are giving answers to those challenges, we must not wait for these ideals to be done or completed because it might take decades in making more and better job creation to happen, so maybe the report or study, if possible, will move ahead by looking into business models that can work even with the existing constraints,” Lopoz said.

If the business models were looked into in the study, Lopoz saw the possibility of the government to see how it can incentivize the models in a form of easier regulatory frame and how the government can scale them up by linking it to bigger industries who already have the networks in distribution.

The MJR is a comprehensive package study that will summarize existing analytical work and undertake research on job creation in the Mindanao.

In a report, implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for the amended Cabotage Law is presently drafted and will be off press by the end of the year.

Source: Sun Star Davao