Mindanao exports $626 million in 1st quarter
text HADER GLANG

Mindanao’s progress has been encouraging with a remarkable 10.97% growth in the first quarter of this year, reaching US$626 million, higher than the US$564 million recorded during the same period last year.

Undersecretary Virgilio Leyretana of the Mindanao Economic Development Council (Medco) reported this in the 7th Mindanao Seaweed Congress held from Sept. 7 to 8 at the Marcian Garden Hotel convention center in Zamboanga City.

About 300 participants consisting of seaweed farmers, traders, exporters, processors, investors from the Philippines and abroad, and employees from government and private agencies attended the two-day seaweed congress.

Leyretana said Mindanao’s significant growth was largely fueled by the increases in exports of bananas, crude and refined coconut oil, sintered iron ore agglomerates, preserved and fresh pineapples and tuna, which are traditionally exported to Japan and United States.

There is also a 10.06% or US$219 million growth in the 1st quarter of this year. A new entrant to the export market is Turkey, which ranked 10th by importing a total of US$10 million of flat-rolled, bananas and coconut from Mindanao, Leyretana said.

“If this trend continues under an environment of peace and a well-managed integrated development program, we can see no reason why the Mindanao mega-region could not succeed,” Leyretana said.

Meanwhile, the Medco chief expressed concern over the eroding competitiveness of Philippines seaweed and carrageenan in the international market brought by the rapid growth of seaweed production in Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia.

He said the country stands to be overtaken as the leading supplier of Eucheuma seaweed and carrageenan in the world and that by 2010 or even earlier the seaweed production will have exceeded the RDS (raw dried seaweeds) level of the Philippines unless the stakeholders can get their acts together expeditiously.

“Our neighboring countries have launched an extensive program to open new production areas supported by large credit and is improving existing processing plants and establishing new ones in strategic areas,” he said.

To address the serious threats, he said unit costs must be attained at competitive levels across supply chain from the farms to the processing plants to the ports (from seed to shelf), quality consciousness must be internalized by all stakeholders, economic quantity volumes must be maintained in order to attain efficiencies and lower costs, and the Philippines must establish an image being a reliable supplier. (ZS)