CEBU and DAVAO, hand in hand for a stronger Philippines!

[Tj-Mixxed]

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[img width=500 height=375]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/tj_brewed/DAVAO/wadab2.jpg[/img]

This is a public hospital in Davao - Davao Medical Center.

[omad]

Tj, when is the supposed ground-breaking of Riverfront Corporate City in Davao? or has construction already started? what a very nice development not only for Davao but for the whole region as well :mrgreen:

[Tj-Mixxed]

Davao Wild Water Adventure




www.davaowildwateradventure.com for more info

[Tj-Mixxed]

Tj, when is the supposed ground-breaking of Riverfront Corporate City in Davao? or has construction already started? what a very nice development not only for Davao but for the whole region as well :mrgreen:

tapos na ang ground breaking..3 years ago! Tapos na rin yung pre development stage such as the construction of its roads, underground drainage system, centralized water system, and electrical Facilities.

sa previous post ko, i have mentioned the establishments which are present already such as the Crocodile Park, Riverwalk, Tourism Complex, etc.

With the highrise buildings, of course it depends with the lot owners to when they would build this.

Based on the previous correspondence that we have with the marketing arm of Sta Lucia (Orchard Properties), few of the things to watch out for this year are:

- Commercial Strip
- Transport terminal
- Quay Restobars

The City Council had just approved few months back the developer's application for the Phase 2 construction.

[Tj-Mixxed]

IBM brings IT, biz solutions to Davao
August 26, 2006

IBM Philippines, the leading IT company in the country that helps transform customers into successful on-demand businesses, held on Friday a grand technology and business solutions event in Davao City, Mindanao's largest and fastest developing IT hub.

Together with the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the unique occasion featured experienced IBM professionals who shared a broad range of IT and business insights.

A CIO and CEO fora were conducted during the affair.

Among the relevant topics discussed were: People Productivity Beyond Just Email and Putting Davao Business on the Web, Driving Business Innovation and Transformation, and Expanding the Innovation Horizon for Philippine Businesses.

Cocktails and live entertainment culminated the grand event.

"We chose to bring the innovation-based business strategy through all our products and services offerings specifically designed for SMB clients in Davao, because we want to be the partner of choice in Davao's quest to become On Demand," explained Chestnut Andaya, cross industry sector country manager, IBM Philippines.

Such strategy speeds time-to-market, reduces the risk of obsolescence, provides early warning of potential business disruption and the opportunity to anticipate disruptive technologies and use them to disrupt competitors.

Innovation-based growth seeks to deliver new value to current customers and markets or create entirely new market opportunities.

"Innovation, which lies at the intersection of market insight and technological know must be at the heart of strategy formulation. Innovation shapes, alters and defines the very nature of business, it is no longer an implementation issue," said Joaquin Quintos, country general manager, IBM Philippines.

IBM, together with its business partners, is committed to help provide and accelerate IT growth in Davao City.

[Tj-Mixxed]

Davao Trade Expo 2006 goes Global

"We mean global business."

From an agriculturally-focused trade exhibit in 1999, this year's Davao Trade Exposition (DATE) will showcase local brands and resources not only to the domestic market, but also to major regional players in the BIMP-East ASEAN Growth Area, Japan and the United States, Domingo Duerme, chair of DATE 2006 organizing committee said Monday. FedEx leads US-based exhibitors that have committed to join the expo on September 15 to 17, he said. The consulates of Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan responded very positively to the invitations, Duerme added.

Lawyer Bienvenido Cariaga, president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (DCCII) said the expo's theme "Davao goes global" manifests the organizers’ goal to promote Davao not just as an investment destination but as a source of globally recognized products and services.

Local products are highly competitive, Duerme said, and could reap a good following in the global market, especially in the BIMP-EAGA.

Projected sales during the expo, with 25% target increase this year, to around P102.5 million or around $2 million (at P52 to a dollar) from the exhibit this year. Since 2003, when it started to expand the expo from focusing only on agricultural products to industry, commerce, equipment, services, technology, financing, the expo has generated a total of P173.5 million or $3.34 million.

From P36 million in 2003, the earnings rose by 55% in 2004 (P55.5 million), and by 32% in 2005 (P82 million), Duerme said.

Duerme said around 70 of the 140 exhibitors they targeted this year have already signed contracts while 30 others have reserved booths.

DATE 2006, Mindanao's premier trade exhibit, is expected to gather key business players, share market information, explore viable and emerging businesses opportunities, organizers said.

Aside from the exhibit, there will also be trainings, business matching and sales meetings at the city's Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

This is not the first time DATE organizers pitched for a global outlook. In last year's expo held on October 7 to 9, Cariaga said they aimed to foster business partnerships, create strategic synergies that will together, build global competitiveness.

[Streetcar]

Wow i enjoy browsing through the pictures of Cebu and Davao in this thread. Looking at Davao which i have never been there, its so progressive na man sab diay. Thanks for sharing these photos nice to see all the views and the nice tall hi tech modern looking structures. Continue to share with us.

[Tj-Mixxed]

Davao's Chinatown

One of Davao's Chinese Temples located within Chinatown Davao

DAVAO CITY--OVER 100 YEARS after the first known Chinese migrant Lim Chuan Jun found his way to this city, the Chinese-Filipino community is currently setting up a Chinatown here.

It's rising from a 43.3-hectare Santa Ana district where over 500 families of Chinese Filipinos live and do business, says Davao businessman William Go, president of the Chinese Filipino group Davao Kaisa movement.

"This is an area bustling with activities by day but a virtual ghost town at night," says Go, whose father Go Hong Liong left China to set foot in Cebu before the war, and later on opened a buy-and-sell business and settled in Davao.

"We are putting up night markets and holding the major Chinese festivals here, so that the whole area bustles with life even after dark," says orthopedic surgeon Romeo Regner Du of the Davao Chinatown Development Council.

The Davao Chinatown is the country's second Chinatown after Binondo in Manila.

It will have a Chinese museum, Chinese restaurants, and later on include areas in the city where more Chinese temples will stand, says Edgar Te, who worked with businessman Amado So in laying the groundwork of the plan.

Sebastian Angliongto, former chair of the Mindanao Economic Development Council (Medco), also says they are developing the place into a transshipment point of cheap electronics goods from China and other areas of the East Asean Growth Area -- composed of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

But unlike those insular enclaves that used to typify the world's earliest Chinatowns, the Davao Chinatown will showcase how Chinese culture blended with everything in Davao, says Angliongto.

Four grand welcome arches (paifang in Mandarin) which come to symbolize most Chinatowns around the world -- is currently being put up at both ends of the old streets of Oyanguren and Santa Ana, bordering the whole Chinatown here.

They will adopt traditional Chinese designs but with the icon and symbols of Davao, says Angliongto, whose father left China to set sail to the islands across the South Seas (Nanyang), referring to the Philippines, and eventually opened the first ferry routes in Davao.

"Indigenous fruits like durian and pomelo or bird species like the Philippine Eagle will be incorporated in the Chinese design to tell travelers they are in Davao," says Angliongto.

The four gates -- which cost around P2.5 million to P5 million each -- stand for peace, hope, unity and friendship, says Te, who heads the technical group designing the project.

Two of the grand arches will be set up at the opposite ends of the old Oyanguren street, a street lined up with shops owned by Chinese merchants selling grains, car tires and spare parts and cheap textiles.

This old street was named after Basque trader Don Jose Oyanguren of Guizpuzcoa, Spain who later became Davao's first governor-general.

But in 1963, to erase traces of the colonial regime, the Davao City Council changed its name to Ramon Magsaysay.

The new street name however failed to catch the people's fancy, because up to this day, the street continued to be called Oyanguren.

As a boy growing up in the 60s, Go says the name Oyanguren evokes the images of wooden houses with capiz shell windows lining the streets. The parallel street of Monteverde -- where calesas used to ply -- stretches all the way to the pier, known today as the Santa Ana wharf.

Another pair of arches will be installed at both ends of Santa Ana Avenue, which cuts across the old Hospital Avenue along C.M. Recto, and passes by the Chinese Davao Central School, where young Davao Chinese Filipinos first learn their letters.

Go realized only lately what language can do to connect a new generation of Chinese-Filipinos to their family in China. His father died in 1983, but his aunt arrived here from China in 1984.

She thought they could not understand each other and was only surprised to hear the same Fookien language that she grew up with is spoken so well by most Chinese here.

"We speak the vernacular Fookien Amoy although the pudong jua (national language) of China is Mandarin," Go says. Now, his aunt has visited Davao seven times.

Aside from the four arches, the Davao Chinese community is setting up road signs and billboards with Chinese characters. Red lanterns will adorn storefronts and lamp posts will light up the whole area at night.

But for Te, it was not that easy convincing the elders of the Davao Chinese community to open up to the idea of a Davao Chinatown.

"It took about four years of hard work by businessman Amado So before the Chinese elders here finally opened up to it," he says.

Reta, who chairs the City Council committee on tourism, authored the ordinance creating the Davao Chinatown, and a resolution setting up the Davao Chinatown Development Council, composed of government and private representatives, to develop the whole area into a world class travelers' destination.

As a result, the Davao Chinatown project has spurred revival of interest in Chinese culture, says Go.

He says they have started tracing family roots to find out who were the first Chinese migrants in Davao.

But at present, they can trace only as far back as Lim Chuan Jun, mentioned by Rogelio Lizada in his book "Sang-awun sa Dabaw" (Once upon a time in Davao) to have arrived in Davao in 1878.

"We're still digging up the archives," says Go. "So far, we can only trace as far back as the fourth generation."

But Angliongto is confident it can be done. "Those old people, they were very wise," he says. "They left traces. When a Spanish edict in 1904 made them change their names, they adopted the whole name, so that future generation can trace them. Some adopted totally new names because they wanted to vanish without a trace but my father, he adopted his whole name Angliongto, as if to tell the later generation what happened to him."

According to Lizada's account, the old Lim Chuan Jun later adopted the name of Francisco Villa Abrille, after the Spanish Governor General of Davao Faustino Villa Abrille.

Go says they are lining up at least five major Chinese festivals every year to celebrate here.

These include the Chinese lunar New Year, the Ching Ming or Spring Festival, the dragon festival in summer, the moon festival and the Chung Yung festival in honor of the ancestral graves.

But with the existing firecrackers' ban in Davao, they are using gongs to sound the festivities, and they are coming up with other ways to make the festivities merrier, says Go.

[Tj-Mixxed]

[img width=266 height=500]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/tj_brewed/DAVAO/newforum/frontpix.jpg[/img]
Davao Random Pix

[img width=440 height=500]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/tj_brewed/DAVAO/newforum/davao9_2.jpg[/img]
Marco Polo Hotel Davao

[diehardbisdak]

Foreign firm invests P1.4B in Cebu projects
Sun-Star / Saturday, August 26, 2006

An international firm specializing in construction and communication projects is investing P1.4 billion in development projects in Cebu.

Fastem Group of Companies (FGC) said the influx of foreign investment, particularly in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry in Cebu, is “a clear indication that Cebu City is a hotspot for foreign investors looking for an opportunity to do business.”

“I am going to plan and invest accordingly because I believe this country will progress very far and I also believe Cebu will remain a very exciting place to be,” said Sun Kyu Baek, president of Fastem Group of Companies, in a statement furnished to Sun.Star Cebu.

Baek said Fastem’s decision to pour investment in the region had depended on factors that ranged from stability of the economy, political climate in the region and availability of competent human resources.

“The law is well established for foreigners to come and invest here and there is an abundance of well-educated workforce. Cebuanos welcome foreigners and treat us kindly,” Baek added.

Fruit

According to FGC, the P1.4 billion investment is “beginning to bear fruit.”

Fastem Housing and Development Inc., a real estate company under the umbrella of FGC, is building Tower Palace.

The 20-storey residential and condominium tower will rise on a 3,000-square-meter prime lot at Cebu Business Park. Construction is set to be completed in September 2008.

The tower will have 200 condo units (single bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom and penthouse) and various facilities, such as function rooms, basement parking that can accommodate 226 cars, spa, fitness gym, day care station and a business center.

Another FGC member-company, Fast Wall System, which specializes in the fabrication of cost-effective walling materials, has set up a wall panel manufacturing plant in Mandaue City.

Optimistic

FGC reported that a number of local businesses have already procured Fast Wall’s lightweight concrete panel system described as “a groundbreaking walling system that’s low-cost and highly efficient.”

Baek said he is optimistic that future investments will continue to pour in.

“Based on current trends and with what I see now, I’m very much open to the idea,” he said.

“FGC is always on the look out for business opportunities, which would reap rewards for us and our partners, and right now, Cebu has provided us with lots of opportunities,” he said. (MMM)