A sister city agreement between Davao City and a city in the United States of America (USA) was proposed during a courtesy call of the delegation from the US Embassy in Manila, led by Foreign Service Officer Hunter Zhao, with Vice Mayor J. Melchor B. Quitain Jr. held at the new conference room of Sangguniang Panlungsod in Davao City on Tuesday.
Quitain said the USA delegation’s visit aimed to engage with local officials and key stakeholders for possible areas of collaboration.
“I met with some representatives from the U.S. Embassy. Nagvisit sila sa Davao City and they are looking for possible investment opportunities and I was told that here in Mindanao I think it’s only Davao City that they have visited first because they heard in the news that its very safe here and seguro one way of checking it is to come here to Davao City,” Quitain told the media on the sidelines of the farewell session of the 20th City Council.
According to Quitain, he suggested to the delegation a sister city signing agreement with another U.S. city.
“We talked, have exchanged of ideas, and we suggested to them if we can have a sister city signing agreement with another U.S. city, they said they will look into it,” he said.
In 1994, Davao City forged a sister city agreement with Tacoma City in Washington state, aiming to foster cooperation in areas like education, tourism, and local economies.
Quitain added that aside from joint collaboration, the U.S. delegation was also looking at investment opportunities in Davao City.
“We told them that Davao City is more on agriculture and if they have a technology that they can bring here to further enhance the agriculture in Davao, maganda yun, and we are very excited,” he said.
Quitain said that the delegation assured him that they will come back to Davao City.
“I think they will have a new ambassador to the Philippines that will be installed next year, so whatever they report there, we invited the head of office from the U.S. Embassy to visit Davao this Kadayawan,” he said.
The visit of the delegation to Davao City was part of the U.S. Embassy’s outreach initiative across various parts of the Philippines.
