Exporters urge gov’t to help promote products abroad

The export industry needs more government support especially in promoting the country’s products abroad.

Fred Escalona, Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (PhilExport) Cebu executive director, made this statement in reaction to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) governor Amando Tetangco Jr.’s call on the private sector to invest more in research and development and come out with new products that could compete in markets abroad.

Tetangco said he was concerned about the Philippines being over-reliant on remittances from overseas Filipinos in terms of financing the foreign exchange needs and the export sector had the potential to balance out this concern.

Escalona, however, said exporters were already doing that (research and development) and what they needed would be support from the government.

“We’ve done that already. In fact we are doing seminars and forums for our exporters towards conceptual marketing, innovation but the thing is most of our small and medium exporters think that ‘differentiation’ means more expenses. What we are doing now is trying to make them look at how they can be more efficient in their process and create new offerings at still lower prices to their customers,” Escalona said.

Slowly, some exporters are now learning to appreciate what Philexport is telling them, which will soon help make the sector more competitive, he said.

new markets

The exporters are also developing new markets like China, India, Europe and even the local market.

Escalona said that the European market would be a challenging market because of the many product requirements which included “green” requirement which had become a global trend.

“Energy efficient products or ‘green’ products are among the concerns that the exporters are addressing to be able to market their products especially to the Europeans who are very passionate about that, he said.

“So the new project of GIZ (German Agency for International Cooperation) and DTI is ‘greening’ or the processing in the tourism sector value chain, which will help especially when it interlaces with the export production in the region,” said Escalona.

He said that they were implementing many initiatives.

“I see 2013 as a better year than 2012 for the exporters and we can achieve more with more consolidation of efforts especially that the government’s goal is to earn $100 billion by 2016,” said Escalona.

In a recent forum on inclusive growth, Philexport Cebu president Venus Genson said there’s a “disjoint” between the private sector and the government with each doing something for the development of the sector but weren’t talking with each other.

Genson mentioned the much needed “financial assistance scheme” that would cater to the bottom of the economic pyramid that would include the small businessmen catering to exporters.

“The requirements in banks are impossible for small businessmen to comply. There should be a financial scheme that will not require so much and is accessible to the small businessmen if we are to achieve inclusive growth,” said Genson.

Genson also said that the exporters really need the help of the government in terms of marketing and promotion activities as well as branding.

Escalona agreed with Genson.

“She is one of those who are in the business for a very long time already and is exposed to many markets abroad. I can understand where she’s coming from. Recently she attended a trade fair in Europe and found out that all the exporters from Vietnam are fully subsidized by their government from their booth, airfares and accomodations. This is part of promoting our brand, the Philippine brand and I agree that we really need the government’s help in activities like this,” said Escalona.

Another issue is also the ISO-certification in the country which is very expensive and thus discourages small exporters from processing one for their products and minimizing their competitiveness even if they have better quality products.

“In Thailand, ISO-certification is substantially subsidized by their government that is why their exporters have ISO-certificates for their products and are able to market their products and compete abroad. We will need this as well to help our exporters,” said Escalona.