04/01/2012 (Philstar.com) – Armed conflicts may have destabilized some areas in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, but investors still poured around P1.7 billion worth of ventures in the area from January to October in 2011.

Records from the office of lawyer Ishak Mastura, chairman of the ARMM’s Board of Investment, indicated that the biggest chunk of the total investments generated in 2011 was the capital input from the EA Trilink Corporation, a regional telecommunications outfit based in Marawi City.

Operating on a franchise issued by the 24-seat ARMM Regional Assembly, the telecommunications firm has initially poured P1.5 billion for its project in the ARMM.

In the third quarter of 2011, Matling Industrial and Commercial Corporation in Malabang, Lanao del Sur invested P23 million for a biomass power plant for its multi-million cassava starch factory.

Another big agricultural firm, the Agumil Philippines, spent P132.3 million for a modern palm oil mill in Buluan, Maguindanao, home to hundreds of hectares of African palm oil trees.

Mastura said investors’ confidence in the ARMM could be partly attributed to the continuing effort of the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to pursue and negotiated settlement of the peace and security issues besetting the Moro-dominated areas in the South.

Mastura said he is certain the newly-appointed officer-in-charge of ARMM, Mujiv Hataman, will focus on measures that can sustain the improvements in the local business atmosphere.

Businessman Pete Marquez, a senior member of the Metro Kutawato Chamber of Commerce, said they fully support Hataman and the Aquino administration's agenda of introducing reforms in the ARMM.

“Reforms in the regional bureaucracy will also usher in improvements in the region’s economy,” Marquez said.

Marquez said Hataman must put only hardworking and qualified people at the ARMM’s trade and investment department to show the business communities that he and his principal, President Aquino, are keen on fostering economic stability in the ARMM.

Hataman, who assumed as OIC-governor only last December 22, is still to appoint his trade secretary.