More entrepreneurs in Sinulog Trade Fair

CEBU, Philippines - A total of 34 entrepreneurs are taking part in this year’s annual Sinulog Trade Fair that was officially opened yesterday at Atrium C of SM City Cebu.

The Department of Trade and Industry-7, which has been in the forefront of activities for Small and Medium Enterprises such as this, expressed elation over the huge support of the people for the businesses as well as the entrepreneurs who have continually showed their interest in participating in trade fairs.

Elias Tecson, the program management division chief of the DTI and the chairman for this year’s event, said that they are very happy that more and more SME players are showing their interest in joining fairs since it opens a lot of opportunities for them.

Tecson said that in the previous year, there were around 20 participants. The increase this year has been attributed to the participation of businessmen from other provinces even as far as Davao.

DTI Cebu Provincial Director Nelia Navarro said that they are pleased with the turnout of participants for the fair, which will run until January 20.

She said that they are looking forward for more activities within this year that would be able to help the small players in the industry.

Navarro said that they push activities like trade fairs since they see that entrepreneurs get a lot of help in terms of generating more income and having a wider scope of customers.

She said that they hope the Sinulog Fair would be a good time for the participants since the foot traffic is tremendous within this time considering that the festivities draw a lot of attention from locals and foreigners alike who come to the city to celebrate.

“We are expecting a lot of people and this would truly be a big help for the small businesses. Through the Balikbayans, tourists and pilgrims or the devotees, products of the local businesses would be seen.”

Navarro added that this is a good time for the entrepreneurs to test which of their products are the most anticipated by the public so that they would know what to enhance and probably sell for export.

Based on the previous trade fairs, Navarro said that they are optimistic that this Sinulog Fair would also do good since the previous fairs in 2009 had very good feedback especially the One Town One Product Visayas Island Fair held last November also in SM City Cebu.

It generated millions of pesos for over 117 participants from the different towns in region 7.

Navarro said that this is a good indication that small traders and their products are being supported by the public. – NLQ