ARMM's role seen in revive barter trade plan

COTABATO CITY — The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) would a significant economic factor to reviving the old barter trading with neighboring members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), officials said.On Tuesday, President Rodrigo Duterte said his meeting with the administration’s economic managers would also delve on revival of barter trading, and enhance trade link with Sabah where rice price is comparatively low.ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman said inter-regional maritime trading in the south is an old tradition traced back from ancient barter trading, but which is viewed in modern times as a form of smuggling.Mr. Duterte said he would revive the old barter trading through which the country could import cheaper rice from Sabah. Exchanges of goods via inter-regional maritime trading have traditionally determined for the island provinces and neighboring territories their priorities in agricultural and fishery production since the pre-colonial era.Statistics show that rice production is traditionally low in the country’s southern island provincesand It is pegged in Sulu at 1,914.25 metric tons (MT) in Tawi-Tawi at 582.40 (MT) and Basilan with 2,675.40 MT, and these have hardly gained increase since 2015.ARMM Regional Agriculture Secretary Alexander Alonto Jr. noted that the region’s 2017 rice production increased to 544,486 metric tons by 11.53 percent, and its aggregate area of production also marked a 9.56 percent increase to 212,927 hectares from the 2015 figures.Sittie Anida Tomawis Limbona, administrative director of ARMM’s Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, said provincial databank should store the most updated agricultural statistics in aid of research and development (R and D) for the welfare of the incoming Bangsamoro in the ARMM government.Hataman said 2016 statistics saw the region's economic performance improving by 0.3 percent when it contributed 0.6 percent to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).It was when the ARMM’s agriculture, forestry and fishing sector shared 56.3 percent in the region's output, indicating a 3.0 percent contraction, according to the CountryStat, a project of the Philippine Statistics Authority.Reports of alleged rice smuggling has prompted the Malaysian and Philippine authorities to check on shipment loads to and from coasts closely linked by sea transports along territorial waters of the Philippines and Malaysia.Ferdinand Marcos in 1975 legalized minor maritime import-export economic activities with Labuan, Sandakan in Malaysia, and Singapore through the barter trading center in Zamboanga City.Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol said the island provinces should be required to develop a rice production project with an initial 1,000 hectares as pilot area. Alonto on Wednesday said Tawi-Tawi had acquiesced to Secretary Piñol’s proposal, adding that reports from provincial agriculture offices also indicated that the other island provinces –Sulu and Basilan—had each committed 1,000 hectares in support of Secretary Piñol’s formula. Nash B. Maulana