PASIG CITY — The National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) said the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) will attract more business investors to the Bangsamoro region and boost its economic growth up to 12.8% annually, which will reduce poverty rate in the region.

“There is a Bangsamoro Development Plan and the idea there was to anticipate business interest,” said NEDA Deputy Director General Emmanuel Esguerra in a news report.

NEDA Regional Office 11 Director Maria Lourdes D. Lim also said that once BBL is passed and fully implemented, the expected 12.8% increase of the Bangsamoro economy was based on increased business activities as projected in the Bangsamoro development strategy.

“The plan is expected to push the regional economy to achieve double-digit growth rates in the first five years of the creation of the Bangsamoro, with gross regional domestic product per capita rising to P38,000 to P40,000, from the current P29,608. This will further narrow the regional disparities between the Bangsamoro and the rest of Mindanao regions,” Lim said in a DevPlus publication released by the NEDA for the first quarter.

Lim added that this kind of growth rate will reduce the poverty incidence rate in the Bangsamoro from 50 to 52 percent by 2016.

Meanwhile, business leaders have pledged to invest in businesses totaling $366 million (PHP 16.3 billion) for Mindanao once the proposed law is passed.

“Although this legislation will not cure all the ills of the present situation, I believe the negotiators on both side sincerely tried their best to find a fair and lasting peace in Mindanao,” says Vicente T. Lao, chairman of the Mindanao Business Council.

In addition, Unifruitti Group of Companies Chairman John Perrine said that the initial investments in agricultural products vowed by different companies would generate around 23,000 jobs in direct employment in the Bangsamoro region.