Filipino banana exporters have concentrated their efforts in ensuring that the Japanese market will continue to be its main buyer. This is increasingly important as the performance of the two other big markets, China and Korea, has declined since about five years ago.
Early this year, the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association, the group of the 18 biggest banana companies in the country, launched a public relations and government relations campaign to strengthen the hold of the Philippine banana in the Japanese market.
President of the Association, Alberto P. Bacani, said the goal of the action “was to bring to the attention of Japanese consumers, the Japanese government as well as trade organizations like the supermarket organizations in Japan about the plight of the Philippine banana industry.”
Because of the rise in operational costs, which have been aggravated by the unabated increase in price increases of petroleum products, Bacani said that their goal was for the Japanese market to support the Philippine banana industry considering that the local industry is about 75% of the total Japanese banana market.
Strong dollar not all gainful for banana exporters Mindanao
Filipino banana exporters, who are mostly based in Mindanao, find that a strong US dollar is not all good for their industry. While a weak peso increases the exporters’ dollar-denominated revenues, this also drives up the cost of petrol-based fertilizers, which was aggravated by the skyrocketing price of oil due to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
The peso stood at P58.95 to a US dollar on Friday, while it was P50.688 a year ago.
Source: mindanaotimes.com.ph