ALAMINOS CITY, Pangasinan — The Hundred Islands engineered-kawayan factory, built on a 1,000-square-meter land in MVC Techno Demo Farm at barangay Tangcarang here, opened on Tuesday.
City Agriculturist Arceli Talania, in an interview on Tuesday, said the E-kayawan factory benefits seven workers and many bamboo growers herey and from nearby towns and cities in the province.
Talania said the factory started with keychain products until they came up with more sophisticated designs like plaques, trophies, podiums, frames, toys, chairs, tables, lampshades, and anything their clients ask.
“We also have ready market in the government departments and even private organizations, patronizing our products,” she said.
In his speech, Mayor Arthur Celeste highlighted that “more than generating job opportunities, capacitating bamboo growers, and helping conserve our environment, these e-kawayan souvenir items and valuable products could be a world class product that the whole city could truly be proud of”.
Celeste encouraged everyone to continue working together in coming up with initiatives and in strengthening the city’s e-Kawayan factory that will “further drive the development of dynamic bamboo industry in the city and the whole province”.
Celeste, with other city government officials and stakeholders, led the blessing and ribbon cutting of the factory.
Talania said the project was funded by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR).
The proposal for the funding has been sent by the city government to PAGCOR since 2009, but it was approved in 2011 through a memorandum of agreement between the two proponents and the PHP31 million funds have been downloaded to Alaminos City in 2012, she said.
“The amount covered the engraving machine, human resources management and tissue culture laboratory among others,” Talania said.
However, the city government has noted an excess of PHP15 million from the PHP31 million funding, which was supposed to be used for the tissue culture laboratory, she added.
“The variety we use that is Kawayan Tinik is not suitable for tissue culture, hence we made a request to PAGCOR to allow to use the remaining fund for additional machineries” said Talania. (Hilda Austria/PNA)
