DAVAO CITY—The former head of the Regional Board of Investment believes the sustained higher economic growth of the Bangsamoro region, as cited by a study, would continue.
Lawyer Ishak Mastura, former managing head of the BOI in the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm), said the research by Renato E. Reside shows a positive economic growth trend in the Bangsamoro region.
Reside, a professor of the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Economics, presented last month his paper “Determinants of Finance and Economic Growth within the Bangsamoro Region,” where Mastura was a discussant.
Reside said “economic intuition suggests that several factors would lead to higher growth within Barmm.” The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Barmm) replaced the Armm in 2019.
One factor that Reside cited is the provision of systemic fund transfers from the national government to the Barmm to fund operations of the regional government that can stimulate aggregate demand with the region, as well as productivity over a longer period. A second factor is the recent inclusion of more economically productive areas into Barmm, such as Cotabato City.
Mastura, who is now a member of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) Parliament, said he was optimistic that economic growth in the region as explained in the research paper would continue to be on an upward trend.
Growth trend
AS he validated Reside’s findings, Mastura said the Barmm “has been enjoying a positive growth trend since last year with the second highest regional growth rate in the country in 2021 at 7.5 percent growth rate.
“This is possibly due to the block grant transfers beginning in 2020 to the autonomous region averaging P70 billion yearly,” he said. “Also possibly due to the block grant, the Barmm capital of Cotabato City has the third-highest deposit base in Mindanao with P113 billion in bank deposits after the cities of Davao and Cagayan de Oro as of December 2021.”
Mastura disclosed another data showing Barmm’s fisheries production as the highest in the country in the second quarter of this year.
Barmm has total fisheries production of 346.42 metric tons or 28.6 percent, making it the biggest contributor to fisheries production in the Philippines, he added. Barmm was followed by the Zamboanga Peninsula (Region 9) with 153.38 MT (12.6 percent); Central Luzon (Region 3) with 130.79 MT (10.8 percent); Western Visayas (Region 6) with 96.66 MT (8.0 percent); and Soccsksargen (Region 12) with 89.41 MT (7.4 percent).
He said most of the fisheries productions in Barmm, which he said were mainly aquaculture, were produced in the island provinces of Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, and Basilan. The remaining were from Maguindanao, Basilan, and Lanao del Sur.
Faster growth
DESPITE the growth figures, Mastura cautioned that the Barmm “needs to grow much faster in order to catch up with the rest of the country in terms of economic development.”
“The 7.5-percent economic growth rate last year coming from our low base rate is more of the base effect in economics, or in layman’s term it is a post-conflict economic rebound or bounce after years of being a conflict-affected region. Other post-conflict areas enjoyed similar rebounds with double-digit economic growth rates, such as South Sudan, which had the highest growth rate in the world ranging from 25 percent to 30 percent after their independence vote,” Mastura said.
Reside presented last month his research paper on the Barmm during the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas–UP Professorial Chair Lectures in late November at the Bangko Sentral main office.