The Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) is expecting air connectivity to expand in the East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), benefiting trader and commerce within the subregion, according to a Philippine official.
 
“Connectivity initiatives like this truly present a cheaper and faster movement of goods and travelers,” MinDA chairperson Luwalhati Antonino said in a statement received by GMA News Online on Friday.
 
In Indonesia, Lion Air subsidiary Wings Air revived its Manado-Davao flights last month with a 70-seater twin-engine aircraft.
 
“This progress will greatly benefit our traders and businessmen who have major transactions in either Manado or Davao, and other nearby cities,” Shelly Sondakh of the BIMP-EAGA secretariat in Manado noted in the same statement.
 
Before the Wings Air flights, passengers had to take the costlier Davao-Manila-Jakarta-Manado route, said MinDA.
 
BIMP-EAGA is set to launch this year the Davao-Manado-Kota Kinabalu and Puerto Princesa-Kota Kinabalu routes by MaSwings airline.
                                            
The BIMP nations (Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines) signed in 2007 the Air Linkages memorandum of understanding to promote and enhance trade, investment, tourism and cultural exchange in the sub-region.
 
Within the geographical scope of EAGA are Indonesia’s Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua, Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak and the Labuan federal territory, the Philippines’ Mindanao and Palawan, and Brunei Darussalam’s entire sultanate. — MJC/VS, GMA News