The Philippine Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) global marketing and intelligence teams (GMITs) are aiming at East Asia and ASEAN as main targets of the country’s export campaign starting this year.
“We have identified markets which we think will give us the much exports and investments. Right now, East Asia, Japan, Korea and Taiwan really offer the biggest opportunity. Of course, there is also China. The American and European markets are currently showing flat growth,” said Glenn G. Peñaranda, DTI’s Foreign Trade Service Corps (FTSC) assistant secretary. “The Middle East market is also showing a lot of promise.”
The FTSC represents DTI in many countries overseas. It takes ascendancy as the main agency in trade and investment promotion abroad.
The GMITs were created to implement the Global Marketing and Intelligence System (GMIS) which would allow DTI to take better advantage of emerging Philippine trade and investment leads and opportunities.
The team has also selected sectors that will be promoted in these priority markets. Topping the list is food which is targeted for the Americas, East Asia, China, ASEAN and ANZ (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Australia, New Zealand and territories in the Pacific), Middle East and Africa, Europe and South Asia (India).
“Food is a priority for everyone. It ensures that we have enough food, aside from the fact that it generates a lot of jobs, including those in the countryside which is part of the inclusive growth strategy,” Peñaranda explained.
Likewise, design-driven products like furniture, home and fashion; and automotive parts have been initially selected for trade promotion in five areas.
Other priority export products and services include non-food coconut, garments, construction materials and services, information technology enabled services, electronics, mining and tourism.
On the other hand, priority sectors for investment promotion include tourism, PPP (public-private partnership), mining, investment funds, agribusiness, garments, IT-enabled services, automotive parts, electronics, manufacturing: non-electronics, shipbuilding and logistics.
“One of the inputs of the teams is the trade and investment promotion plan. We have prepared the document already; it is an evolving document. Based on the first round, there are 92 projects we are looking at. These are consistent with the priority sectors that we have identified. For example, we have identified halal foods,” Peñaranda said.
Apart from exports and investments, the teams are also tasked to generate commercial intelligence and tourism in target markets and sectors.
He expressed optimism that with GMIS, the Philippines can be more efficient in its exports and promotions work and help achieve the country’s export target of $120 billion by 2016.
“The (GMIS) structure is market-focused but within that market, we have to be sector-focused,” he explained. “We hope that the impact of whatever we do will be more substantial particularly for the benefit of the stakeholders.”
Peñaranda said GMITs will work with the stakeholders, including the exporters, on the implementation of priority projects.
“There is so much competition now…we have to be very efficient in managing and servicing the opportunities,” Peñaranda said.
For this purpose, the DTI has been re-organized to put all agencies involved in export and investment promotion under one group “to keep up with the times,” he added.
The GMITs are composed of representatives from seven Trade Policy and Investments Group agencies: Bureau of Export Trade Promotion, Board of Investments-Investment Promotion Group, Board of Investments-Investment Servicing Group, Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions, Foreign Trade Service Corps, Philippine International Trading Corp, and Philippine Trade Training Center.
Photo of Fruits In Basket by zole4
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