Manila, April 23 (Antara) - The Philippines is targeting Indonesia and several other countries as potential markets for the exportation of its agricultural products, particularly sugar.
"In addition to South Korea and India, Indonesia and the Middle East were also identified as potential market for sugar," Emmanuel Esguerra, the Philippine National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) officer-in-charge and deputy director-general, said as quoted by Manila.com Standard Today on Monday.
He said Philippine International Trading Corp. and the Sugar Regulatory Administration identified these markets earlier and was coordinating with buyers in these countries for their specific requirements.
Indonesia, besides, the United States, Russia, China, Korea, Malaysia and India are among the major importers of raw or cane sugar, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization Statistics of the United Nations.
The Philippines is exporting an initial shipment of 3,000 metric tons of bananas to the US, the Bureau of Plant Industry said. FAO considered the US as one of the top 20 importers of bananas.
"This is also in line with US Department of Agriculture's announcement that allows Philippine highland Cavendish bananas to be shipped to their country," Esguerra said.
Neda cited the recent National Statistics Office report that exports of centrifugal and refined sugar and bananas grew 27,094.6 percent and 95.5 percent year-on-year in February 2013, respectively.
This contributed to the 43.7- percent increase of total agro-based shipments in February this year to $343.9 million.
Esguerra stressed the need to expedite the implementation of necessary programs and policies to improve the competitiveness of Philippine exports and take advantage of increasing regional and global integration.
"No doubt the exporters have been affected negatively by the strong peso, but this can be overcome by the positive impact resulting from better infrastructure, efficient logistics, lower power costs and other measures to reduce the cost of doing business," he said.(A014)
