GORONTALO- The Vice Governor of Gorontalo, H. Idris Rahim accepted the visit of Philippine Consulate General in Manado, Oscar G. Orcine in Vice Governor’s office, Friday (24/11). Between Vice Governor and Consulate General initiated the bilateral cooperation in Tourism and Trade sector.
Oscar said that, he came to Gorontalo due to meeting with the Gorontalo Provincial Government also to do the bilateral relationship more intensively. According to the Consulate General Philippine in Manado, North Sulawesi, Oscar G. Orcine, Gorontalo Province is one of 12 provinces in East Indonesia that being the area of his working target in Sulawesi .
“This is my first time visiting Gorontalo, I am delightfully happy and hopefully this meeting could make the more better cooperation between Gorontalo and Philippine,” Oscar said.
On this occasion, Vice Governor , H, Idris Rahim also explained that one of the priority program in Gorontalo province is Tourism sector. He said that Gorontalo has so many tourism destination such as maritime tourism, culinary tourism, custom and culture also nature tourism.
“If being permitted, we may reopen direct flight route Gorontalo-Manado-Davao that has been served for a few years ago by Indonesian airlines for smoothing the tourist transportation,” Idris added.
Idris told that many potential object that Gorontalo has, particulary in fisheries industries, agriculture products and for agriculture products like corn, Idris suggested Philippine to import corn from Gorontalo.
“We have already imported corn to Philippine, but it stopped now, We do hope Philippine will import corn from Gorontalo, We also have fisheries products abundantly here and ready to export to Philippine,” Idris said.
Consulate General explained that his country really need corn from Gorontalo, according to him the corn stock in his country can not be accommodated by the other province in Indonesia, Oscar responded to the Idris utterance.
“We still need corn from Gorontalo, we do hope Gorontalo can take part to export corn commodity to Philippine,” Oscar said.
Oscar continued that he didn’t know so far that Gorontalo was a fish producer in Indonesia. “Therefore we saw an opportunity to do fish import from Gorontalo, like we have already done in Ternate and Palu,” he added.
Oscar also added that the connectivity between East Indonesia, particulary between Sulawesi and southern Philippine is being priority for both countries. This has been realized by the launching of RoRo vessel, President Joko Widodo and Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has set to inaugurate this new shipping route, Bitung-General Santos-Davao City.
“By this connectivity we do hope that it open a lot of opportunities for all provinces in Sulawesi Island and southern Philippine,” He closed.
Reporter/Editor : Haris
Photographer : Haris
Translated by : Fera
