The lack of a world-class port in the Visayas is hindering the plan of some big banana companies to expand there. According to Stephen A. Antig, executive director of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA), a world port is essential as it is a major component in the banana production for export.
“Two of our members, notably big ones, wanted to develop at least 2,000 hectares, but they noted that there was no port that they could use to bring their produce to the international markets,” said Antig.
He said the companies will wait for the result of the 2016 elections and whether the national government will push for the possibilities of helping the industry expand, particularly in investing in infrastructure facilities in areas where they are needed, like ports in Visayas' growth areas.
Last year, the industry, which in 2014 netted about $1.136 billion in export receipts, contemplated expanding to the Visayas.
Antig said at that time that the organization, which is composed of the biggest banana exporting and producing companies in the country, identified a 25,000-hectare contiguous area in Central Visayas which used to be a sugarcane plantation.
The companies decided to look for expansion areas after several problems hit the industry, particularly the typhoon Pablo about three years ago, the cyclical dry spell, extortion activities of the rebels and government policies that they thought were putting the industry in peril.
Antig said that the continuing extortion activities have also pushed them to continue to look for other areas.
Because rebels burn equipment and threaten companies if they do not pay revolutionary taxes, they have been losing as high as 20%, he added. “For example, if they burn a packing house, it would take several months to build a new one and that the company will again secure an accreditation (of the facility) from the Department Agriculture,” he added.
The industry has also been hounded by policies, some of them still proposals, which its leaders believed could derail its growth.
Source: mindanaotimes.net
