With the passage of Bangsamoro Basic Law creating an autonomous region in Mindanao a step closer, foreign chambers of commerce in the Philippines urged the government and private firms to speed up investments in the area for immediate development to take place.

“The business community looks forward to the Bangsamoro becoming a reality so that business can be developed and investments can lead to job generation,” Henry Schumacher, executive director of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) said in a phone interview over the weekend.

Mr. Schumacher said that as the region anticipates the conclusion of the years-long peace process, national and international institutions should hasten development in the area.

“Institutions like the World Bank Group and the European Union Commission and United States Agency for International Development should generate support activities that the success of the Bangsamoro meets expectations of the youth there,” he said.

Last Friday, the national government and the Moro-Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said they have completed discussions on various issues involving the draft Bangsamoro law, a measure which will ultimately bring peace to a region that has been in armed conflict since the 1970s.

The Bangsamoro Transition Commission, which was tasked to come up with the law, said that the draft is scheduled to be prepared and submitted to President Benigno S. C. Aquino III today.

“We congratulate the commission for finishing this important draft law and hope that it can still be enacted by yearend,” John Forbes, senior adviser of the American Chamber of Commerce said in a text message.

“Peace and development have been overdue for far too long in the Muslim-majority provinces,” he said.

However, Mr. Forbes noted that while investments from the public sector have grown in the region, more is needed to attract private companies to support the area’s development.

“Private sector investments will need strong incentives and guarantees to support earlier entry,” he said.

“The (Bangsamoro) government can structure attractive incentives by learning lessons from the national government, which has failed many years to attract investments into poorer regions of the country,” Mr. Forbes added.

Congress aims to pass the Bangsamoro law, effectively creating a new autonomous region in Mindanao, by the end of this year or early next year.

Source: Business World, 18 August 2014