Mindanao traders elated having new large mall in BARMM's capital

COTABATO CITY — Traders in Central Mindanao were elated by the formal launching on Tuesday, April 1, of the multi-billion KCC Mall in Cotabato City, seeing it as a "magnet" for potential investors from other regions and abroad.

Cotabato City, the regional capital of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, also includes the provinces of Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, and the cities of Lamitan and Marawi.

Ronald Hallid Torres, a lawyer-entrepreneur and chairman of the Bangsamoro Business Council, which has members across all BARMM provinces and cities, told reporters on Wednesday that the launch of the KCC Mall in Cotabato City, the largest among all its branches in Mindanao, is a positive sign for their efforts to demonstrate to potential investors from other regions and abroad that it is now safe to establish capital-intensive businesses in the city.

“The setting up of this very big mall in Cotabato City will create the impression among our friends in the business communities outside of the autonomous region and abroad that it is safe now to put up big businesses in barangays around,”  Torres, a resident of Cotabato City and spokesperson of their large organization, said.

The Bangsamoro Business Council, most known in BARMM as the BBC, is a staunch supporter of the government's separate peace overtures with the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, partly meant to improve commerce and trade in areas where both groups have enclaves that are now recognized as “peace zones” by the police and the military.

Cotabato City's newly-established KCC Mall was opened to the public on Wednesday, April 2, under tight security provided by the Cotabato City Police Office, the 5th Marine Battalion Landing Team and the Army's 6th Infantry Division.  

More than 300 guests attended the symbolic launching and blessing of the mall on Tuesday, conducted by a Catholic priest, including entrepreneurs from across Central Mindanao and public officials, led by BARMM's chief minister, Abdulrauf Abdul Macacua. 

“When peace and good governance are in place, development follows. Investors come in when they see stability and reliable government services. That’s exactly what Cotabato City offers today and we should all be proud of that,” Macacua said in a message to guests who graced the event.

Macacua told reporters on the sidelines of the event that the influx of investors from other regions and abroad into BARMM in recent years, according to records from the Bangsamoro Regional Board of Investments (RBOI), reflects the positive impact of the Mindanao peace process, now being felt in areas previously devastated by three decades of struggle for self-governance and meaningful autonomy by Moro communities.

"This new KCC Mall in Cotabato City is, for us and our client traders, a very powerful magnet that can attract more outsider traders to come into the Bangsamoro region and put up capital-intensive business ventures,"  said Mohammad Omar Pasigan, chairman of the RBOI, an outfit under the BARMM government.