Rep. Eddie Gullas pushes for more trade missions

Cebu first district Rep. Eduardo Gullas has urged the government to expand its trade missions and set up new trade offices in Brazil, Russia, India, and China, or the so-called BRIC countries.

Gullas, in a press statement coursed through the Philippine Information Agency, said that right now, there are absolutely no trade representations in Brazil, India, and Russia.

"India for instance, is bursting with consumers awash with money to spend and hundreds of thousands of fresh-out-of-college young men and women working for the first time each year in booming call centers and other global business process outsourcing providers; yet, we do not have a single trade representative there," Gullas said.

Gullas said that most consumers in the world now live in the BRIC countries and their economies are soaring at two to three times the 3.3 percent average growth rate of the world economy.

Aside from that, the BRIC countries are also among the most heavily populated. They have a combined population of 2.8- billion or 42 percent of the world's 6.6-billion people, with China having a population of 1.31 billion; India with 1.08 billion, while Brazil has 187 million and Russia with 143 million.

Gullas said, quoting figures from the UN-World Economic Situation and Prospect Report, that China and India are expected to grow by 8.3 percent and 6.8 percent respectively while Russia and Brazil are also expected to expand by at least five percent.

The Cebu congressman went on to say that statistics from the Department of Trade and Industry showed that the country's exports to the BRIC countries amounted to about $3.5-billion from January to October 2005 and some $2.7-billion in 2004.

Presently, the DTI's Foreign Trade Service Corps, which provides commercial representation for the Philippines abroad, has 68 officers only consisting of commercial attaches, special trade representatives and trade assistants that are posted in 20 countries and not one of them is posted in the BRIC countries, except for five officers in China, Gullas said.

In terms of consumer products, the Philippines is scarcely exporting to Brazil, Russia and India; while some 60 to 90 percent of the country's exports to China, India, and Brazil consist of industrial semi-conductor and electronics products and 48 percent of exports to Russia consist of industrial automotive equipment, Gullas said.

"By now, we ought to be selling in India our shoes from Marikina, fashion accessories from Cebu, and even our ready-to-wear clothes," Gullas said. -Gregg M. Rubio