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The President of the Zamboanga City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation, Inc. (ZCCCIFI) said he already expected the slow economic growth of Region IX last year.

Based on the data taken from the National Statistical Coordination Board IX (NSCB), Statistics, Zamboanga Peninsula’s only registered a 0.1% economic growth for 2011.

“It is expected considering the high cost of doing business makes the city uncompetitive as of now," ZCCCIFI President, Pedro Rufo “Cholo” N. Soliven said  in an interview.

According to Soliven,  it is not only the power crisis that is crippling the local industry but also the additional cost of doing business in the city like the increase of real property tax which is an added burden to the local business community.

He also mentioned the peace and order situation. “Everything starts with peace and order. We have to look at peace and order as the central focus and come up with a solution to be able to address the situation.”

The Chamber president believes that more investments for the City and the Region will come in if the peace and order is good.

The figures on the economic growth of the Region IX shows that Zamboanga Peninsula only grew by 0.1% in 2011 as compared to 3.6%. last 2010.

The sectors contribution to Region IX’s output are as follows for Services 44%, Agri, Hunting, and Forestry and Fishing 28%, and Industry 28%.         

The Agri, Hunting, Forestry, and Fishing sector is composed of Agriculture and Forestry, and Fishing, the Industry sector is composed of mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, and electricity, gas and water supply while the Service sector is composed of transport, storage, and communication, trade and repair of motor vehicle, motorcycles, personal and household goods, financial intermediation, real estate, renting, and businesses, public administration and defense, compulsory social security and other services.

The data were taken by NSCB IX from the National Statistics Office (NSO) and the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS). It is being consolidated which will show the economic performance of the region.

There were many factors which caused the 0.1% growth of the economy of the Region to include the slowdown of the fishing industry, brownouts, less spending of the government, and others.

Region IX ranked 12 nationwide when it comes to economic performance and growth rate.

By R.G. A A. Go