MANILA – The Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) wants to craft an incentive package to attract investors to explore opportunities in the sub-region.
Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) International Relations Division Development Management Officer Jonathan Miral said in a phone interview that offering incentives to locators was part of the sub-region’s agenda to increase investments from private sector in the BIMP area.
“Currently, we don’t have any incentive package for BIMP-EAGA investments. With this, we hope to entice and increase flow of capital into the sub-region,” Miral told the Philippine News Agency.
He added that BIMP-EAGA is looking at granting income tax holiday, lower tax rates, and other fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to investors.
He said that in the BIMP-EAGA Vision 2025 blueprint, the East ASEAN countries have USD24.4-billion worth of infrastructure projects — developing roads, ports, airports, and economic corridors which the private sector can participate.
Philippine-based Asian Marine Transportation Corp. will service the new shipping route in the BIMP-EAGA, the Davao City-General Santos-Bitung.
To date, three companies had committed to use the new Philippines-Indonesia route, Miral said.
This roll-on roll-off (RoRo) service will be launched on April 30 by President Rodrigo Duterte and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, following the 30th ASEAN Summit and Related Meetings from April 26 to 29.
The sub-region will also hold the 12th BIMP-EAGA Summit on Friday in Manila.
MinDA is the country’s lead agency to the BIMP-EAGA.