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News Top Stories Cagayan de Oro remains the fastest growing urban center in Mindanao
News Top Stories Cagayan de Oro remains the fastest growing urban center in Mindanao
| Cagayan de Oro remains the fastest growing urban center in Mindanao |
| Tuesday, 22 January 2008 22:19 | ||||||
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Powered by its capital city, Region 10 became the second most active regional economy in the Philippines in 2006 with a 6.8 percent growth, tied with the National Capital Region and second only to Cagayan Valley, making it the fastest growing economy in the Visayas and Mindanao. It was an impressive comeback from 2005 when it only grew 3.8 percent, good for 11th place behind the ARMM. On the heels of the accelerating growth followed prosperity. Region 10 also has the highest Per Capita Gross Regional Domestic Product in the Visayas and Mindanao area in 2006, making it the biggest regional economy in Mindanao, according to figures released by the National Statistical Coordination Board. With a per capita GRDP of P15, 628 (at constant 1985 prices) Northern Mindanao was tops not only in Mindanao but in the Visayas as well, outranking other regional powerhouses like Calabarzon, Davao, Cebu, Negros and Central Luzon. This was 5.4% higher than its 2005 level of P14, 829. In fact, only Metro Manila (P37, 855) and the Cordillera Administrative Region (18,171) outranked Region 10 in the entire country in topped an unprecedented US$674,712,494.46, jumping 25% over the previous year's figure thanks to a strong showing from Iligan City and Lanao del Norte and exceeding the export target for 2006 by five percent. Region 10 also remained Mindanao's largest economy in 2006 with a GRDP of P62.559 billion; P4.715-billion clear of Davao's (Region 11) P57.844-billion, often perceived to be Mindanao's biggest and fastest growing regional economy. Region 10 also had the biggest GRDP in Mindanao in 2005 at P58.138 billion, but has widened its lead over Davao to 8.1% from 4.1% in 2005. Nationwide, Northern Mindanao was the sixth largest regional economy in 2006 outside the National Capital Region, trailing the Central Visayas, Calabarzon, Central Luzon, East and West Visayas. Davao ranked seventh, followed by Socsksargen, Ilocos and Bicol regions to round out the top 10. With Cagayan de Oro as its anchor, Region 10 gathered inertia to attain its present rate of growth through its fast growing economy through a strong real estate property development balanced by inter-regional infrastructure development such as the Mindanao Container Port, and widening of its Iligan-Cagayan de Oro-Bukidnon Road (ICBR), the road artery which links it to key regional satellite growth centers. With over 100 subdivisions containing 80,000 lots covering over 1,000 hectares and counting, the real estate boom in the city has been tempered by the continued development of inter-city infrastructure such as the recent inauguration of the Kagay-an bridge across the Cagayan river, and the East and West coast public utility terminals which have eased the city's traffic gridlock. That's because although Cagayan de Oro city itself "officially" only has half a million residents, it serves a consumer base of well over three million people covering the five provinces (Bukidnon, Camiguin, Lanao del Norte, Misamis Occidental and Misamis Occidental) and eight cities (Cagayan de Oro, Gingoog, Iligan, Malaybalay. Oroquieta, Ozamiz, Tangub and Valencia) of Region 10 (Northern Mindanao) as its regional shopping center. National titans SM City and Big R Super Center have mixed-use shopping malls to rival Limketkai and pioneers Ororama and Gaisano which all boast of department stores, concessionaires, national food chains and cinemas equal if not better than similar stores in other progressive regional centers. Specialty stores like CITI Hardware, Robin's Home Depot and Pilipinas Makro have set up shop for more segmented clientele. Keeping pace is real estate which saw no less than 86 residential subdivisions in Cagayan de Oro alone going up between 1993-2007. These include 12 high-end developments including Mountain Meadows Residential Estates, Puerto Heights, Xavier Estates, Teakwood Hills, Pueblo de Oro including Morning Mist Village, Philamlife Village, Golden Glow Village, Hillsborough Pointe, Richmond Hills Subdivision, and Alegria Hills and Tuscania Subdivision. Immediate past Oro Chamber President Elpie Paras notes that once the real estate business prospered, its upstream and downstream links also came alive as related businesses boomed as well. Besides wholesales and retailers, light and medium industries are also finding Cagayan de Oro and its satellite areas an ideal home with its mix of affordable industrial parks, reliable and affordably priced utilities, and central location linked to the rest of the country and the ASEAN region with seamless transportation and communications. The 3,000-hectare PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate-Misamis Oriental is the country's largest, with the 200-hectare First Cagayan de Oro Business Park and the 80-hectare Alwana Business Park now online. Three others are in the pipeline: Laguindingan Industrial Park, El Salvador Economic Zone, and Gingoog Special Economic Zone. Already, 19 light and medium industries are operating in Cagayan de Oro, the largest of which are Del Monte Philippines, Inc. and Nestlé Philippines, Inc.'s ASEAN regional manufacturing center for milk powder. As the Hanjin Corporation's US$2-billion shipbuilding facility comes online over the next 10 years, more upstream and downstream industries are expected to take root, joining the 30 or so industries now operating in the Phividec Industrial Estate-Misamis Oriental. Thanks to this fortuitous mix of industrial infrastructure and locational advantages, Region 10 exports in 2006 topped an unprecedented US$674.7 million, up 25% over 2005 thanks to a strong showing from Iligan City and Lanao del Norte and exceeding the export target for 2006 by five percent. The region's export performance in 2005 was an equally impressive US$541.424-million, up 18% over 2004's US$459.125-million. Thus, Northern Mindanao remains to be one of the Philippines' fastest growing regions in export growth with a 21.13% average annual growth rate for 2003-2005 compared to 6.17% nationally with main export markets in Europe, Japan, USA, China, Malaysia and Korea. Another driver of the continued increase in exports and gross city domestic product are Cagayan de Oro's recent and planned transportation and communications projects through which the lifeblood of this regional dynamo flows. Already served by five telephone local exchange centers (LECs), four mobile phone companies, and ten internet service providers (ISPs), it is riding high on the wave of convergence sweeping the country's communications industry with voice, text, data and video seamlessly inter-weaving through land lines, mobile phones, the internet, cable TV and wireless. So far, the city already has four call centers: Link2Support, the city's first at Pueblo de Oro IT Park, TradeTel Corp. in Carmen, Capitol University and Arriba in Limketkai Center with a total capacity of over 1,000 seats providing medical transcription, software development and tele-servicing and product support services. Besides the Pueblo de Oro IT Ecozone, it also has two other IT Ecozones at SM Cagayan de Oro and Ororama Megacenter. Just recently, Cagayan de Oro marked another ICT milestone as it became the first city to have its main commercial districts wired for "Wi-Fi" by UC-21. However, what is expected to bring the erstwhile fastest growing of Philippine cities into the big leagues are projects not yet quite in the pipeline but would inevitably be realized due to the inexorable pressure of market forces. "Once it's a potential, it's bound to happen," says Edward V. Argayoso, president of the city's oldest appraisal firm. "It becomes a matter of price." Among these are new developments in the Cagayan de Oro City Hall complex, the planned development of the 150-has. Cagayan de Oro airport complex at Lumbia into a new central business district (or its alternative, the transfer of the Philippine Army's Camp Evangelista in Patag to Lumbia once the airport facilities are transferred to Laguindingan),the proposed development of the southeast and southwest blocks of the Misamis Oriental provincial capitol complex into a mixed use development to include a multi-story office and commercial block, micro-retail mall or tiangge, 150-room business hotel, multi-story parking, and dining/entertainment center, and the sale and transfer of the Cagayan de Oro City Central School complex along Velez and Yacapin streets. Argayoso notes all these projects are at the disposition of cash-strapped local and national governments. If market forces continue to exert upward pressure on the market prices for these prime properties, it's inevitable they would soon be up for development in one way or another. That pressure promises to become even greater as key big-ticket infrastructure projects come on line, promising to keep the regional economy flush with cash through the next five years. Prominent among these are the US$106.2-million Laguindingan Airport Development Project (LADP), a US2-billion dollar shipbuilding facility at the Phividec Industrial Estate in Misamis Oriental, and the Tubod-Tangub Bridge linking Lanao del Norte and Misamis Occidental. Since the Mindanao Container Terminal resumed full operations in 2006, two more flagship infrastructure projects are edging nearer completion: the P5.8-billion Laguindingan airport in Misamis Oriental and the P2.63-billion Panguil Bay (Tubod-Tangub) bridge linking Lanao del Norte and Misamis Occidental. Though both are viable projects mainly hampered by funding difficulties, national, regional and local leaders are working closely together to find innovative alternatives which can bring them online in the next 5-7 years.
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