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Friday, September 02, 2005
Filipino exporters urged to sell products to EU
There is a huge market in the European Union (EU) that Filipino exporters could tap.
That’s what Federico Escalona, executive director of the Confederation of Philippine Exporters Foundation (Philexport)-Cebu Inc., said in an interview during the “Doing Business with the EU” seminar at Cebu Grand Hotel yesterday.
“EU offers a very huge market potential for Philippine products. With a pop-ulation of 450 million, we are talking of a market that is 40 percent bigger than the US and three times larger than Japan,” he said.
The US and Japan are the Filipino exporters’ main markets.
Escalona said that while furniture and fashion accessories exporters have penetrated the EU countries already, there is still a big market that’s waiting to be tapped.
Processed food
He added that Philex-port-Cebu would want to push for other sectors, like the processed food manufacturers, to try out the European market.
Philexport-Cebu and the Center for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI) jointly organized the three-day seminar.
CBI is an agency of the Dutch Foreign Ministry tasked to promote imports from developing countries.
“We are here to streng-then the competitiveness of the Filipino small and medium enterprises and improve Filipino exporters’ market in Europe,” Martin Bitter, CBI consultant said.
Bitter said they would conduct awareness-building programs that would run for three to five years.
The program would include training, trade exhibits and product consultation, where they will see if the products are attractive to the European market, among others, he said.
“Interested Filipino companies would have to spend for only two percent of the total cost of the program while the Dutch government would shoulder the rest of the expenses,” he revealed.
Responsibility
Another important issue that would be tackled in the seminars and training, which the CBI will conduct, are regulations regarding the environment, production methods, social responsibility and consumer safety, especially on food products.
“Exporters should familiarize themselves with the rules and standards in exporting goods to Europe. If not, those regulations could become barriers in trading with Europe,” he advised interested exporters. (ALC)
(September 2, 2005 issue)
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