The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Davao Region continues to upgrade and strengthen its investment promotion initiatives, including the improvement of investment facilitation.

To further improve the investment promotion officers of DTI and their counterparts at the local government units (LGUs), the agency conducted the first-ever Business and Local Investment Networking Knowledge (BLINK) Capability Building Workshop recently in Davao City.

At least 55 DTI investment promotion officers and local economic and investment promotion officers (LEIPOs) from all over the region participated in the two-day workshop that aimed to capacitate them in handling investment-related concerns.

The BLINK workshop discussed the 2017 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) and investment incentives of the Board of Investments (BOI), Local Investments and Incentives Code (LIIC), Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) incentives, Foreign Investments Act and updates on the Foreign Negative List, among others.

“This activity has been conceived by the DTI since we saw the need to capacitate those handling investments in their locality to ensure smooth processing of investment requirements for local and foreign investors. This is also in anticipation of the influx of investors in the coming years,” DTI-Davao Regional Director Maria Belenda Q. Ambi said.

As of the first quarter of 2018, BOI-Davao has recorded a total of Php14.14B worth of registered and approved projects for Davao Region, mostly belonging to the real estate and agribusiness industries. This is relatively higher than the Php2.44B amount of investments recorded around the same time last year. For 2017, the value of investments poured into the region amounted to Php7.98B.

Aside from the lecture series, workshops were also undertaken wherein the participants were divided per province/city and were made to design investment promotion packages and convince potential investors in a simulation activity.

“The DTI will continuously strive to provide the necessary assistance to the IPOs and the LEIPOs in terms of improving and upgrading the way they handle investments to create a ripple effect in the overall investments performance of the region,” Ambi added.

The BLINK Capability Building Workshop for Investment Promotion Officers is the first activity of its kind for the region. DTI-Davao Region intends to have a second round of the activity that integrates other investment topics that were not discussed in the recently concluded workshop.♦