Business World reports that the government in the Philippines has offered Thai businessmen the City of Samal in the Davao Region as a potential investment site for poultry and mariculture projects, the Agriculture department said in a press release.

The statement said that President Gloria M. Arroyo and Agriculture Secretary, Arthur C. Yap, briefed a 38-member delegation of Thai businessmen on investment potentials in Samal City.

The delegation was led by Dhanin Chearavanoni, chairman and chief executive officer of the Bangkok-based Charoen Pokphand Group Co. Ltd., which is the biggest agribusiness conglomerate in Thailand and the fifth largest feed mill operator in the world. The businessmen were toured in a 2,000-hectare area in Talikud Island ideal for a possible poultry project, Agriculture Assistant Secretary, Salvador S. Salacup, said in the statement.

Furthermore, government officials offered the potential investors an investment opportunity to develop a large part of the 200-hectare mariculture park in Samal.

Mariculture parks are sea areas where high-value fish like milkfish, red snapper, crablets, seabass and seahorse are caged and raised.

"The Thais will still review their programs and their international partnerships," Mr Salacup said in a phone interview. "We will communicate with them by the third week of March just to follow-up with the development proposal."

Since its launch in 2001, only 20 hectares of the 10-million peso, 200-hectare mariculture park has been developed by Davao-based agribusiness entrepreneurs into fish cages for bangus and other high-value marine species, Mr Salacup told Business World.