Officials of the Department of Agriculture (DA) are set to fly to Indonesia this week to hold trade negotiations with their counterparts in a bid to expand the agricultural commodities being exported to the Southeast Asian country.
During the year-end press conference of the Department of Agriculture, Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said they were looking to regain the tobacco and shallots market of the Philippines in Indonesia by requesting the latter to ease market restrictions on these products.
“There’s a great disparity in trade balance,” he said. “We’re importing about $1 billion from Indonesia but exporting only $50 million because of their restrictive policies.”
Piñol said he had discussed the matter with Indonesian Ambassador to the Philippines Sinyo Harry Sarundajang and that the latter was able to convince the Indonesian government to open its market to the Philippines.
According to the secretary, Sarundajang is a friend of President Duterte.
The move to export more agricultural products to Indonesia is one of the many initiatives of the agency to broaden the Philippine export market.
Piñol said they were also exploring the markets of Malaysia and Brunei as more production areas were now situated in Mindanao. Mindanao is located at the country’s western far end, just across the border of Malaysia.