USDA: Trade Mission to Philippines Could Open Markets for CA Producers

USDA: Trade Mission to Philippines Could Open Markets for CA Producers

USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service Administrator Daniel Whitely recently led a trade mission to the Philippines and said it was a very successful trip.

“It really was fantastic to connect with our stakeholders, our buyers, and importers. The Philippines is our eighth-largest market for U.S. agricultural and food products, coming in just over $3 billion annually during the last five years. But I gotta tell you, after being there on the ground, there's a lot of potential to do a lot better. They are very, very interested in strengthening their trade ties with American agriculture, and there's a lot of opportunity to increase our exports and our presence in the region and, specifically, as a country.

He talks about the agricultural products buyers seemed most interest in.

“They were very interested in more soymeal as they anticipate increasing their animal agriculture. They were also looking at importing more U.S. corn. They do have a domestic corn industry, but it needs to be supplemented to meet their domestic needs, so they were thinking about corn. They were also looking at more pork products as they rebuild their own hog herd. They were also looking for some dairy products. So, a lot of the top products in which were very competitive and have comparative advantages over many of our competition in the region.”

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