Saturday, December 2, 2017
Both the business group and the provincial government are eyeing a 2-legged economy for Negros Occidental, to ensure that growth will include the rural developing areas in the province.
This was revealed by Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive officer Frank Carbon yesterday, after they held a seminar for provincial department heads and local chief executives on developing economic strategies recently.
He said the economic growth of Negros this year was significantly high because it was pulled by both industrial and service sectors, but only focused on the key urban areas in the island, which are the Bacolod, Kabankalan, and Dumaguete metros.
This growth makes the local economy one-legged, leaving the agriculture sector, on which most of the towns and cities in the province depend, growing insignificantly, Carbon said.
“More than half of our lands are devoted to agriculture and we have to do something about it and make our economy 2-legged,” he said.
Division heads of the provincial government were trained Wednesday in Sagay City, and the local chiefs Thursday in Bacolod City, led by economic development consultant Aser Javier, who is an assistant professor at the Institute of Development of Ateneo de Manila University.
Carbon said that developing strategies on expanding growth, especially in the rural areas, is essential for inclusivity and also let the agriculture sector to collaborate with other sectors, like tourism and industrial.
“We want our division heads and local leaders to be development- oriented and come up with economic strategies for their respective departments or towns and cities,” he said, adding that coming up with these strategies, the provincial government will know what resources they should give to complement their programs.
After adopting their localized economic strategies during the seminar, the participants are expected to meet with the provincial planning and development to present them. This might be next year, Carbon said.
They are also eyeing to group the developing towns and cities of the province to ensure that growth will be more visible and fast growing, and make the three metro areas in Negros their model for benchmarking. *MLG
