Banana exporters rethink 40% growth target

The Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) may not meet its target growth in exports this year due to restrictions by China, an industry leader said.

PBGEA executive director Stephen Antig said via text message that alternative markets to China would not come quickly, thus exporters would be hard-pressed to meet its growth target this year of 40 percent.

Antig said that other ready markets for bananas such as Japan are already saturated with Philippine bananas.

“An alternative being proposed by small farmer-exporters is for government to buy bananas originally set to be exported to China and distribute the fruits to the poor. After all, they said, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has a lot of funds. Domestic consumption may not be able to fully make up for the lost exports, however. Or perhaps if there is a way for Iran to pay for our bananas, we can divert some exports from China to Iran, but that is not clear at the moment,” Antig said.

The Department of Agriculture is coordinating with Chinese counterparts to discuss measures to ensure that exports of fruits comply with phytosanitary protocols amid China’s tighter restrictions on Philippine fruit exports.

China tightened requirements for the entry of fruits after it claimed that it had found pests in bananas from the Philippines.

A phytosanitary clearance is issued to indicate that a commodity meets import requirements.

However, PBGEA is not pinning its hopes on those talks, Antig said.

“We have to look for alternatives, in any case,” he said.

Data from the National Statistics Office said the Philippines exported over 2 billion kilograms of bananas valued at $472.4 million.

Of the total, 403.4 million kilograms, valued at $85.283 million, went to China.

Philippine banana growers and exporters said they had lost at least P1.44 billion since China imposed tighter restrictions more than two months ago.

China is a major market of banana exports. It also purchases pineapples and papaya from the Philippines.

Meanwhile, Bureau of Plant Industry Director Clarito Barron said they received information that Chinese quarantine officials reported having received 43 crates of papaya and pineapples with mealybugs from the Philippines earlier this month.

Export issues surfaced amid tension between the Philippines and China over the Panatag Shoal and a recent travel advisory against travel to the Philippines, which resulted in the suspension of tour packages.

The travel advisory is “not likely to cripple” our tourism industry at this point and combined with the trade issues may have only “modest effects” on the Philippine economy as efforts to diversify exports had begun even before the issue over the Panatag Shoal, new Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan had said.

Balisacan is also the new director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority.

“There is an urgent need for various sectors, whether tourism, agriculture, or industry, to diversify markets and sources of inputs to make them less vulnerable to shocks,” Balisacan said. “There are many potential (markets) out there. There are many opportunities other than China. That can be learned from this event.”

Balisacan also noted that China is not the only market to watch. There can be shocks such as the triple tragedy that happened to Japan last year, or the floods in Thailand.

“The effects on our economy are almost similar,” Balisacan said. “The only way a country can defend itself from this kind of shock is really to diversify.”