By Mike Baños
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The biggest business event in Mindanao unfolds in this City of Golden Friendship on August 11-13, 2026 at The Atrium, Limketkai Mall, in the Barangay Lapasan Central Business District.
The Mindanao Business Conference (MINBIZCON) is the largest annual gathering of business leaders, policy makers, stakeholders, and professionals from the public and private sectors which advocates policy issues and concerns through consultations and resolutions which would constitute the policy agenda of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) to be presented to President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. during the Philippine Business Conference held in October every year.
“This will be the sixth time the Oro Chamber will host the MINBIZCON,” said Oro Chamber President Almarco C. Brito in a press conference held to launch the event.
Organized in 1982, the Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation, Inc. (Oro Chamber) is the PCCI’s first “Hall of Fame Awardee” and was the first to host the 1stMINBIZCON) on August 14-15, 1992, led by President Arsenio L. Sebastian III and PCCI Region X Governor Guido Alfredo A. Delgado which some 400 delegates attended with the late President Fidel V. Ramos as the Keynote Speaker.
It again hosted the event in 1994, 2003, 2010 and 2017.
Expounding on the conference theme “Accelerating Inclusive Growth through Innovation and Sustainability: Bridging the Gap, Scaling the Future”, Brito explained it means “measuring the gap between where we are now, and where we want to be in the future.”
“For instance, we are looking at ways by which we can lower the relatively expensive cost of electricity in Mindanao which is a big constraint especially on the manufacturing sector,” he noted. “Oro Chamber is not sleeping on its Hall of Fame laurels but is constantly looking for ways to accelerate inclusive growth through innovations which are sustainable.”
Representing Cagayan de Oro City which will host the event with Co-Host Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), Local Economic Development and Investment Promotion Officer (LEDIPO) John W. Asuncion, who heads the Oro Trade and Investment Promotion Center (Oro-TIPC) said preparations have already been ongoing since a year ago which kicks off with the Cagayan de Oro City Investment Forum and Mayor’s Night to be hosted by the city government headed by Mayor Rolando “Klarex” A. Uy and Oro-TIPC.
“The LGU and private sector will present the key role played by the city as the northern gateway to Mindanao, along with upcoming projects which our delegates may be interested to invest in,” Asuncion disclosed. “Investment promotion is a continuing daily process for Oro-TIPC what doesn’t only happen or stop with conferences like the MINBIZCON.
Cagayan de Oro anchors Northern Mindanao’s trillion-peso economy as the Philippines 6th Most Competitive Highly Urbanized City (HUC), which the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) Philippine Development Plan recognizes as the country’s fourth metropolitan center by 2025 due to it its rapid population growth, strategic position as Northern Mindanao’s primary logistics and trade gateway, and role as a leading regional educational hub.
Another first for this year’s MINBIZCON will be the codification of all resolutions passed in the previous 35 conferences to prevent conflicts or repetitive proposals, said MINBIZCON Conference Director Irene Austria-Floro.
This will entail the gathering of all past and active resolutions from the records of previous conferences, cataloging every file by date and status to isolate active rules from missing, amended, or obsolete texts, classification by distinct subject categories like health, zoning, or public safety to spot overlapping mandates, remove redundant, repealed, or conflicting provisions and rewrite confusing text for clarity, before the final draft is submitted to update a superseding resolution officially enact the new codified compilation.
Foreign Delegates
The Head of Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines His Excellency Ambassador Massimo Santoro is expected to head the foreign delegates to the 35th MINBIZCON along with trade attaches from the embassies of Ukraine, Malaysia, Austria, the People’s Republic of China, and representatives of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
UNDP is the global development network of the United Nations that advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience, and resources to help people build a better quality of life. Operating in about 170 countries and territories, it focuses on eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, and promoting sustainable development.
