ORMOC CITY-City Mayor Richard “Goma” Gomez welcome the participants of the 25th Visayas Area Business Conference held in the city for the first time on Thursday (Sept. 15).
“This event is good for the city. It will boost the interest of business locators to do business here in the city and improve the arrival of tourists,” Gomez said.
The city mayor said the city extended financial assistance of P500,000 for the activity aside from letting the organizers use the city facilities like the astrodome and the public plaza for the agricultural fair.
Opening the two-day conference was the technology transfer day of the Department of Science and Technology held on Wednesday (Sept.14) at the astrodome.
The mayor expressed his confidence that more businesses will come in after the business conference which attracted 500 participants from Regions VI (Western Visayas), VII (Central Visayas) and VIII (Eastern Visayas).
He told the press that a hypermarket of SM will have its ground-breaking on September 24.
Other business giants are coming like the Ayala in partnership with Metro Gaisano, Robinson’s Mall, Max’s Group of Companies, among others.
Asked if his star power has something to do with businesses flocking to the city, Gomez answered in the positive.
Gomez is one of the country’s most popular movie actors and television stars while his wife, Rep. Lucy Torres also made a short stint in show business aside from being a commercial model.
Long before he became the mayor, Gomez said that he and his wife already had initial talks with the Ayala officials and they just waited until he became the mayor.
He opined that his administration is easy to deal with as long as it’s a legal business and he admonished his employees not to accept “kotong” (bribe) from these companies.
The Ayala Group of Companies is interested in the public market area while the SM-Ormoc will be at the City autobus compound.
The just concluded business conference worked on the theme “Change is Here” include topics for the plenary sessions “One Visayas: Everything Under the Sun”; Empowering Businesses through Science and Technology; Visayan Power (Bizdak Power); Agriculture; Transformative land and Coastal Resource Management among other with powerful speakers. (VICKY C. ARNAIZ)
