NorMin poised to be export capital
By NEF LUCZON
June 2, 2010, 5:02pm
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Northern Mindanao is fast emerging as the export capital of the southern Philippines, the result of a research commissioned by an exporters’ group showed.
According to the research commissioned by the Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (Philexport) Region 10 Chapter based here, Northern Mindanao’s export growth the past four years since 2006 was found to be growing at an average of 15.8 percent a year.
This growth is attributed largely to two adequately equipped international seaports located in this regional capital city and in the neighboring municipality of Tagoloan.
The research results showed that Northern Mindanao’s average growth rate from 2006 to 2009 was recorded “despite a sudden drop in shipments last year when practically all sectors suffered negative growth of a high of minus 31 percent for food, negative 10 percent for industrial goods and 15 percent for resource-based products.”
Northern Mindanao’s four-year double-digit export growth average, said the researchers, “were a record that was only pulled off at the national level during the 1990s when heavy investments in the electronics industry pulled export growth to double-digit levels.”
During the 2008 export bonanza, combined export volume sent out abroad from this city’s seaport and the Mindanao International Container Terminal (MICT) in nearby Tagoloan town totaled six million tons valued at US$282 million.
This record, however, went down to only 4.4 million tons worth US$161 million in 2009.
