BAGUIO CITY – Stakeholders will have the chance to actively participate in crafting a short-, medium- and long-term plan for the city’s public market and other satellite markets in the different barangays during the market summit scheduled on March 3, 2017, at the Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) conference hall along South Drive.
Councilor Leandro B. Yangot, Jr., chairman of the City Council Committee on Trade and Commerce and Agriculture, said the summit will allow various stakeholders to actively input their ideas into the multifarious issues and concerns surrounding the public, trade and commerce industry in the city, evaluate the concerns and come out with short-, medium- and long-term plans and solutions.
“Our aim is to make our public market a world-class facility. If not, at least make it presentable to the city’s domestic and foreign tourists flocking to the city,” Yangot stressed.
Being the face of the city, he pointed out it should be a showcase of best practices in market, trade, and commerce and set up for visitors and the community it serves, and he expressed confidence that workable plans could be achieved if all efforts are synergized to achiev the goal.
Earlier, Yangot had a dialogue with market stakeholders as an initial move for the summit to gather and thresh out their concerns to make business relations in the market thriving and organized to best serve market goers.
According to him, the goal of improving and further developing the present market, trade, and commerce situation in the city to make the public market as the Summer Capital’s main tourist attraction that is safe, drug and crime-free, clean and orderly may be achieved through harnessing inter-agency and stakeholders efforts to deal with the myriad of problems that have long weighed down the area.
Yangot added the summit will start with a presentation of the current status of the market, trade, and commerce, and agricultural industry in the city followed by a workshop to identify the issues and concerns, the drafting of proposals and plans as well as solutions and legislative proposals.
He explained the participants will evaluate the concerns then come up with short-, medium- and long-term plans and solutions.
Further, various legislative proposals will be presented to the stakeholders before the matters will be brought to the local legislative body for appropriate action.
Yangot urged stakeholders to be volunteer peacekeeping officers and clean and green advocates to ensure that the market will be the city’s show window.
The local government will be spending at least P185,000 for the summit which is expected to bolster the plans of the local government to fully develop the city’s major tourist destination.
He appealed to all stakeholders to join the scheduled summit to share their suggestions and recommendations on making the market worthy as the city’s show window.
By Dexter A. See
