Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia – It was not until I attended the 23rd BIMP-EAGA Meeting when I realised what opportunities Mindanao and the rest of the Philippines missed over the years by failing to look at the market potentials of our Southern neighbours.
All of the time, we have looked north to market our products – Japan, South Korea, China, European Union, the Middle East and the Americas.
These market destinations are a tough playing field. Not only are there so many competitors but also logistical issues and stringent sanitary and phyto-sanitary protocols.
Down south, however, there is a small but sure market for our products with very little competition.
In my previous trips to Papua New Guinea, although not a member of the BIMP-EAGA, and North Sulawesi in Indonesia, I discovered huge demand for products produced in the Southern Philippines.
On Friday, during my call on the Chief Minister of the State of Sabah, Mohd Shafie Apdal, in Kota Kinabalu, I learned that the state needs supplies of mango, pineapple, bananas, halal chevon and beef, halal chicken and eggs, bulb onion, water melons, young and mature coconuts, ginger and even Nipa palm sugar.
Sabah alone has a 3 million population and 4 million tourists while Sarawak and Brunei have the money to buy goods.
Soon, with the announced transfer of the Indonesian capital from Jakarta to East Kalemantan, a bigger market will sprout from the jungles of Borneo which is very near to our agricultural production areas in Mindanao.
We hardly knew about this.
Yesterday, during the BIMP-EAGA Senior Officers and Ministers Meeting in Kuching, I submitted three proposals as Signing Minister for the Philippines:
1. BIMP-EAGA members should create a virtual common production strategy and common market aimed at complementing each other’s production potentials and identify what the region needs which the member countries could supply.
There are, however, issues which have to be resolved among which are the absence of logistical services and the restrictive policies of some member countries on the entry of agricultural products from their neighbours.
2. The establishment of a Digital Market Linkage between producers and buyers in the region which would allow prospective buyers to determine where they could source the products they need while the producers, farmers and fisherfolk, would know where their goods are needed at what price.
This program was implemented by the Department of Agriculture when I was still Secretary and I believe it could e useful in connecting the buyers and sellers in the BIMP-EAGA Region.
3. There should be complementation not competition among the member countries of the BIMP-EAGA. In the case of Palm Oil, a product from Oil Palm trees planted in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, there is no synchronisation of action taken in the face of the strong lobby by other vegetable-oil producing countries against Palm Oil.
This lobby, especially in Europe, has resulted in the very low Palm Oil prices which also adversely affected the coconut industry.
Yesterday, I proposed a BIMP-EAGA Palm Oil Council which will function ala OPEC to represent the interests of all Oil Palm farmers in the region and initiate a concerted effort to promote the product.
During my visit to North Sulawesi earlier this month, I suggested to officials there a synchronization of the planting and harvest schedules of corn so that North Sulawesi could export corn during off-harvest season in Mindanao.
Yesterday, during my closing statement, I also emphasised the need for the member countries of the BIMP-EAGA not to restrict trade among the people in the sub-region.
Our people have been trading among themselves for centuries long before our governments were established. Why should governments impose restrictions on traditional trading which has existed for centuries, long before there were customs duties and sanitary and photo-sanitary requirements?
(Photos of the BIMP-EAGA Senior Officials and Ministers Meeting yesterday were taken by Mayette Tudlas, MinDA OC.)
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