‘CLEAR THE RED TAPE’: Why investors may skip Western Visayas — and the fix

ILOILO CITY — Western Visayas must sustainably address the cost of doing business and regulatory burdens to retain existing investors and attract new ones, a top official of the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DepDev) said.

DepDev Undersecretary Carlos Abad Santos said investors consider two major factors when choosing where to establish operations: the cost of doing business, including energy, logistics, and labor, and regulatory friction, or the burden of complying with government regulations.

“When you look at the decision to invest, it is not because there is high or low inflation. We have to unpack the reasons,” Abad Santos said.

He said that, all things being equal, investors choosing between Western Visayas and other areas in the country assess these two factors.

“If Western Visayas would like to ensure that you maintain your investors and attract more investments, these two areas have to be addressed sustainably,” he said.

Abad Santos said the region is already in a good position but needs to sustain and further strengthen its advantages.

DepDev, formerly the National Economic and Development Authority, became an executive department under Republic Act 12145, which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed in April 2025.

Western Visayas comprises the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras, and Iloilo, and Iloilo City, after Negros Occidental and Bacolod City were transferred to the Negros Island Region under Republic Act 12000 in 2024.

Agriculture, IT-BPM opportunities

Meanwhile, the Board of Investments (BOI), the investment promotion agency attached to the Department of Trade and Industry, is promoting investments in cold chain facilities, post-harvest systems, and agricultural processing to support the region’s agriculture sector.

BOI Investment Policy and Planning Service Director Sandra Marie Recolizado said the region’s agricultural base presents opportunities for investments in cold storage, logistics facilities, and specialized packaging.

“Given that Iloilo or Western Visayas is basically an agricultural region, we are now promoting investments in cold chain support for agricultural products, including cold storage and logistics facilities. We need facilities that can facilitate the movement of agricultural products, as well as storage, post-harvest systems, and specialized packaging facilities,” she said.

For non-agricultural industries, Recolizado identified renewable energy as another investment opportunity.

She also highlighted the region’s existing physical and digital infrastructure and its established niche in the information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) industry.

Recolizado said, however, that the region should move beyond traditional call center operations and attract higher-value activities such as software development, game development, and systems development.

She added that investment in workforce development is also necessary to support the industry’s expansion.

Permits, roads, seaports

For Iloilo, she emphasized the need to continuously improve physical and digital infrastructure and to make business processes, including securing business and building permits, easier for investors.

Local government units, she said, should work with investment promotion agencies to ensure a positive experience for businesses.

Recolizado also cited the need to improve roads and seaports to ease traffic congestion and logistics delays as the region’s population and economic activity grow.

While Western Visayas already has roads and bridges, she said further infrastructure improvements are necessary to allow businesses to transport goods more efficiently.

“Some roads in the region are narrow, contributing to heavy traffic. However, businesses need to transport their goods efficiently, so we must reduce delays in logistics,” she said.

“There is still room to improve infrastructure, and we believe this should also be among the region’s investment priorities, particularly the improvement of seaports,” she added.