Photo courtesy of DTI
TACLOBAN CITY – Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Eastern Visayas are eyeing at least PHP35 million in sales in a five-day Bahandi Trade Fair in Metro Manila on Oct. 11 to 15, bringing local products to the capital after three years of pandemic break.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) pushed for the market fair at the SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City to allow local producers to link with institutional buyers based in Metro Manila and other parts of the country.
“We are upbeat to meet the sales target with intensive promotion by DTI and producers. Citing our past experiences, sales of trade fairs in Metro Manila were 10 times higher than what our MSMEs earned in local trade fairs,” DTI Eastern Visayas regional director Celerina Bato said in a press briefing on Tuesday.
The goal is lower than the PHP44.13 million actual sales recorded during the pre-pandemic fair in 2019 since there are fewer participants this year, and most of the MSMEs do not have experience selling in Metro Manila, according to Bato.
Some 119 MSME exhibitors will join the fair, including 35 from Leyte province, three from Southern Leyte, 14 from Biliran, 23 from Samar, 16 from Eastern Samar and 28 from Northern Samar.
Among the products to be displayed at the fair are peanut butter, carabao milk, ginger tea, chocolate and other cacao-based products, coconut wine and other coco-based products, moron (sticky rice cake with chocolate), binagol (a sweet treat in a coconut shell), baked products, suman, native bags and handicrafts.
The DTI launched the Bahandi trade fair in 1998 with its first exhibit in this city.
Bahandi, the local term for wealth, is jointly funded this year by the DTI, SM’s Megatrade Hall, Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Plan, Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, International Fund for Agricultural Development’s Rural Agro-Enterprise Partnership for Inclusive Development and Growth (RAPID Growth) Project, Bahandi Producers Association of Eastern Visayas and One Town, One Product Philippines. (PNA)
