New markets for sugar, bananas identified

MANILA, Philippines - The National Economic and Development Authority on Monday said new markets for sugar and bananas may help in sustaining the growth of the country's agro-based exports.

“In addition to South Korea and India, Indonesia and the Middle East were also identified as potential markets for sugar,” said NEDA officer-in-charge and Deputy Director-General Emmanuel Esguerra.

NEDA said the Philippine International Trading Corp. is still coordinating with sugar buyers from both markets. 

The United States, Russia, China, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India are among the major importers of raw (cane) sugar, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization statistics of the United Nations, the state agency said.

Meanwhile, for bananas, the Bureau of Plant Industry said an initial shipment of 3,000 metric tons to the US is slated this month. The US ranks among the top 20 importers of bananas.

The National Statistics Office earlier said that exports of centrifugal and refined sugar and bananas grew by 27,094.6 percent and 95.5 percent year-on-year in February 2013, respectively. This gave a boost to total agro-based exports which rose to 43.7 percent, cashing in a total of $343.9 million in February 2013.

Esguerra said the country needs to improve the competitiveness of its exports to take advantage of 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.