P306 million worth pineapple packing plant up in Wao soon
Economic News • 08:45 AM Tue Oct 1, 2019
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By:
John M. Unson
Residents of Wao stand to benefit from the operation of the pineapple packing plant. (Only for illustration from google.com))
LANAO DEL SUR --- An upcoming P306 million worth pineapple packing plant facility can boost the rise of this province from deadly conflicts instigated by Maute terrorists, officials said Tuesday.
The setting up of the facility in Wao town in the first district of Lanao del Sur is a tie-up between the Wao Development Corporation, or WDC, and the transnational fruit firm DOLE Philippines.
“This can disprove notions that it is unsafe for investors to come in and put up capital-intensive businesses in our province,” Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr. said Tuesday.
Lanao del Sur is barely reeling from the effects of the deadly incursions by the Islamic State-inspired Maute terrorist in isolated towns and in its capital, Marawi City, from between 2015 to 2018.
Hexsan Mabang of the Regional Board of Investments-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said the BARMM government issued last month the registration document for the pineapple processing plant in Wao.
“We are confident other investors will realize it is safe now to put up businesses in Lanao del Sur. The Bangsamoro government is ready to assist and guide them through,” Mabang said.
Mabang said the P306 million worth pineapple packing plant shall initially employ 753 workers.
He said its operator will export 100 percent of its products to Singapore through the DOLE Asia Holdings.
Adiong said the provincial government will help maintain the tranquility in Wao to ensure the undisrupted operation of the packing plant that will employ hundreds of local residents and generate revenues for the local government.
The project’s registration was approved by BARMM just as Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Western Mindanao Command said last month that the security situation in Lanao del Sur and in Marawi City has improved owing to their unrelenting campaign against local terrorists operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Sobejana said peace has also been spreading around Lanao del Sur’s upland Butig town, the birthplace of the Maute group.
The religious adventurism of the group sparked the May 23 to August 16 conflict in nearby Marawi City that resulted in the deaths of more than a thousand, among them soldiers and policemen, displaced no fewer than 300,000 innocent people and ruined dozens of centuries-old Maranao dwelling enclaves.
Sobejana said Tuesday the coming in of investors to put up a P306 million worth pineapple packing plant in Wao is a tacit indication that investors are certain of the stability of Lanao del Sur’s investment climate.
“They will not come and pour in capitals if they feel that spending huge amounts of money for certain projects is unsafe,” Sobejana said.