DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/26 February) – Go green and you’re in.
The city government will provide incentives to investors who use environment-friendly and energy conservation measures — from building
designs to adapting solar panels to energize buildings, Jason Magnaye, head of the City Investment Promotion and Tourism Office, said.
“If they want to put up solar panels to meet the energy requirement of the tenants of that building, they would get the incentives,” Magnaye said,
adding they are finalizing the revised list of investment packages for presentation to Mayor Sara Duterte.
Magnaye also said owners of old buildings and massive structures that would be renovated to adapt to green technology would also get incentives. “We would encourage them to do that,” he said.
The city government still considers property development as a “priority area,” he said, although he noted that “ whether or not you offer
incentives, investors just come up.”
“There are those who construct first, and go to City Hall to ask for incentives,” he said.
To avoid confusion, we have to itemize this sector, because the incentives law said that the sector includes, but is not limited to housing and real
estate”.
He said incentives may be granted to investments in mass housing.
The business process outsourcing sector was earlier considered.
Mayor Sara Duterte has indicated that incentives may be granted to investments in agricultural development.
She said the list was intended to strike off the incentives from sectors that did not require a set of packages and save for the city the necessary
revenues.
“We are observing the cost-benefit policy, where we want to get the maximum benefit to the city and its residents against the cost, which is usually in terms of revenues that we give up,” he said.
Magnaye said the city investment office will link up with the City Agriculture Office to help investors in locating their businesses. “We don’thave to simply say that we have the agricultural areas and that we have to refer only to the zoning map.”
“The Agriculture office has been moving toward a mapping of the agriculture sector,” he said. (MindaNews)