The Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM) has high hopes for the growth of Filipino food products exports as the exhibitor count doubled this year.
IFEX Philippines is CITEM’s long-running trade event and sourcing program for Philippine and global food and ingredients.
Together with IFEXConnect.com, IFEX Philippines serves as a one-stop business-to-business (B2B) platform aiming to optimize their sourcing experience of buyers from anywhere in the world.
This year’s IFEX features over 700 leading Philippine and international food and beverage exporters, double the 346 exhibitors featured in last year’s event. IFEX Philippines project manager Rowena Mendoza told reporters the agency aims to surpass the $107 million worth of export sales generated by last year’s edition of the food trade show.
“If we doubled the exhibitors, we hope the export sales will also double,” she said.
Aside from increasing export growth, CITEM also highlighted the importance of the food trade show in building stronger partnerships and establishing new connections between local micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and international trade buyers.
This is strengthened by the Philippines now being a signatory of the world’s largest free trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP).
The membership into the RCEP is expected to help smaller Filipino brands and companies offer their products and services on the international market and to have more participation in the global value chain.
“IFEX Philippines is a response to the stable growing global demand for Asian and healthy food products, such as durian and ube. It is through sharing that we become more united and interconnected with each other. We hope that IFEX Philippines will be an event where everyone could share a significant piece of their culture to the global table,” CITEM executive director Edward Fereira said.
