THE Metro Naga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, particularly its officers and members, deserves to be congratulated for continually carving its niche as one of the most dynamic multi-awarded business chambers in the country and likewise for underlining anew its role as the undisputed pacesetter in the local business scene, no matter how the nation’s economic weather goes.

On August 28 to September 1, this year, the Naga-based local business chamber, in partnership with the Naga City Government and the local business chambers in Bicol, will be staging the first-ever Bicol Business Week which aims to showcase the region’s business opportunities for new investments. It also hopes to situate Bicol back in the national business radar and debunk its unflattering repute as one of the poorest regions in the country.

Envisaged henceforth as an annual business activity in this part of the country, the 1st Bicol Business Week, with its theme “Make It Bicol”, makes an ambitious leap over the economic hump that has been hounding the country and in the process will prove the cynics wrong that we have nothing to offer in the nation’s over-all growth and development program.

Given a proper forum to move ahead despite the ominous harbingers of trouble sweeping the country’s economic and socio-political landscape, Bicol is sending notice that it is ambitious enough to become as one of the country’s engines of growth. And this endeavor to bring together Bicol’s indigenous resources and entrepreneurial spirit under one regional business event is a welcome statement which is already worth our respect and emulation.

We see at this early stage that this locally-conceived business event will presage many more milestones towards making Bicol an excellent hub for new investors and as a new frontier for national and multinational companies to explore opportunities, i.e. manpower and natural resources, that abound in the six provinces and seven major cities of Bicolandia.

The forthcoming 1st Bicol Business Week underscores the fact that Bicolanos, which in this case are spearheaded by Nagueño businessmen and traders as event hosts, are unafraid to try new approaches and thus are persistently looking for novel ways to widen the region’s horizons and its capacity to compete in the arena of national growth and development.

As highlighted by MNCCI president and event helmsman Nicolas Beda Priela himself, the 1st Bicol Business Week is a must-attend for the serious entrepreneur, both within and outside of the region. Specifically, the business week, through its line up of trade fairs and other business activities, will enjoin participants, guests, exhibitors and investors to take a first-hand look at new opportunities in the region; forge important networks and linkages to help improve every serious businessman’s standing; and know, among other things, recent business and trade issues and developments, and discover the investment potential of selected technologies such as ICT and agri-aqua business systems.

We dare say that the forthcoming business event will realize its objectives — its worth measurable by the organizers’ fired-up energy, determined effort, and noble vision. jbp