Friday, November 23, 2007 Russian traders buying more Davao fresh fruits
MAXIM Cheploutsky, 25, lifted his dark sunglasses, took a good look at the Sasa International Seaport at dusk, sweeping his eyes at the container yard and modern loading facilities, broke into a smile and nodded, "This is good. Let's do it," he said, giving thumbs up.
This Russian import manager of Double D Trade who came all the way from the Far East Russian port of Vladivostok, was just winding his whole day survey tour of Davao banana plantations last year to check out the banana farms, the packing plants and local port facilities and finally decided to place their first import order of fresh bananas, fresh mangoes and fresh pineapples from Davao fruit exporters.
Today, the low-profile Russian trading firm, without any fanfare, has expanded its contacts with several Philippine fruit exporters, mostly in Davao, signing export supply contracts and opening letters of credit from their home office in Washington state, USA.
"We want to be the first in Vladivostok to offer a wide variety of high quality fresh fruits from the Philippines," Cheploutsky said, taking off his black baseball cap with the word "Russia" emblazoned on it.
The US-based Double D Trade company is currently shipping tons of fresh fruits, vegetables and frozen meat to its own marketing outlets in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Vladivostok.
Countries that are now exporting their food products in Vladivostok include Egypt (citrus), Chile (apples, grapes), USA (apples, grapes, pears), Australia (citrus), New Zealand (apples, pears) and Philippines (bananas, pineapples).
Products entering the port of Vladivostok are distributed through local Russian distributors, wholesalers, and retail stores in the towns and cities of Ussurisk, Nakhodka, Khabarosk, Yuzhno, Sakhalinsk and expanding farther towards Siberia.
Cheploutsky said Double D Trade now owns one of the biggest and most modern cold storage facility (including ripening rooms) in the Far East.
Increasing volumes of fresh fruits imported from several Asian countries including the Philippines are stored in this cold storage facility before distribution.
Not many ships however want to go all the way to Vladivostok and those that do, usually unload their containers at Busan port, Korea where they are reloaded again after a few days on other ships for transshipment to Vladivostok, according to Cheploutsky.
Lately, more ocean vessels are taking more reefer container cargo from the Davao port, which include American President Lines (APL), Maersk Lines and others. Last year, when ships were reluctant due to the low-volume shipments from the Philippines, Cheploutsky said it took 21 days from Davao to Vladivostok, but as competition grew between ocean vessels, shipments today are getting better and faster at 15 to 16 days delivery time.
To improve efficiency at the Vladivostok port, top Russian shipping executives from Far East Shipping Co. Ltd (Fesco) sought the help of the world-renown Philippine port operator International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI) to train their Russian managers in handling and managing container cargoes at their port. The Russian port managers were trained last year at the Manila International Container Terminal.
World-class port facilities in Davao, according to Trade Asst. Secretary Merly M. Cruz, can make it easier for ocean vessels to operate more efficiently and serve the shipping needs of more local exporters.
Most of Davao's fresh fruit exporters are shipped from the modern public and private ports along the coast of Davao Gulf, on their way to foreign markets worldwide. (Aurelio A. Pena/PhilPress Features)
