DAVAO CITY-based businessmen and company executives want more business-to-business dialogs with Japanese counterparts just like the one conducted during the Davao leg of the official visit of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month.
The business leaders led by Capt. Ronald C. Go, who is the president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (DCCCII), described the “B2B” encounter as “exciting and highly productive.”
“Dabawenyos need to reach out more to potential investors and business locators,” said Go, who runs a transportation business, aside from heading the helicopter division of the Anflocor Group of Companies.
“The more we engage in activities where businessmen can meet and match their business needs and offers the more there is a chance we can actually consummate a business deal,” he said.
Ellen Jane Ferenal-Garcia, site director of Concentrix, the pioneering BPO (business process outsourcing) company here and the lone firm represented in the B2B activity, said the Japanese business delegation with Prime Minister Abe were pleasantly surprised to know that there are many Japanese colleges in Davao City. Established by descendants of some of the 20,000 Japanese who settled in Davao City before World War II and their backers from Japanese, the schools have been operating for almost decades.
She said many of the Japanese businessmen, who are into BPO operations, promised to come back to firm up deals with local companies saying that engaging Davao call agents who are good in the Japanese and other languages could be more cost-effective than Japanese locals which is more expensive.
Fred Yelinek, an American engineer who has been into construction of buildings in the city, including some designed for call center operation, rhapsodized the Japanese prime minister’s visit was the best opening for business for Davao.
“I have lived in Mindanao nearly 10 years working with business and promoting Davao as a safe profitable location in spite of the occasional bad publicity, and PM Abe’s visit is the best opening for business that I have seen bar none,” Yelinek said.
He added that “our continued efforts must focus on business to business contacts to bring more Japanese business to Davao and the jobs and economic benefits that go with new business.”
As a followup, Yelinek convened a special meeting of the Rotary Club of East Davao, which he presides, and invited Tomoko Dodo, consul-director of the Japanese Consulate in Davao, to speak on the significance of the official visit of PM Abe last month.
Consul Dodo pledged to work with Davao businessmen for more business matching encounter with Japanese businessmen.
