Road maps for 7 sectors ready by January — BOI

The Board of Investments (BOI) and other concerned government agencies will roll out and implement nationwide starting January next year road maps for the processed food industry.

This developed as the BOI is in the last leg of formulating seven road maps for the processed food industry.

The road maps will address seven processed food sub-sectors, namely: processed shrimp, dried mango, condiments and sauces, carrageenan, processed meat, fermented cacao/tablea, and processed fish products (processed bivalves, molluscs, cephalopods, sea urchin and sea cucumber).

According to the BOI, these road maps are expected to be submitted next month to the BOI after the series of workshops in Cebu and Davao.

PURPOSE

The overall purpose of the road maps in general is to make the sub-sectors more globally competitive and export ready, although some sectors may still put more weight on local markets.

“Another aim would be for the sub-sectors to ‘align with the food safety era’,” said BOI Sectoral Champion for the Processed Foods Industry Francis Peraflor.

Emphasis is also being put on the availability of raw material, as well as more investments for each of the sectors.

Time tables have already been identified within each roadmap, with short-term plans slated for 2016, medium-term plans for 2020 and long-term plans for 2030.

Meanwhile, the US Agency for International Development-Advancing Philippine Competitiveness (USAID-Compete) and the European Union – Trade Related Technical Assistance (EU-TRTA) have been giving technical assistance for the formulation of these road maps.

WORKSHOPS

Separate workshops for each sub-sector were and will be conducted in Cebu and Davao with the participation of both BOI and key industry stakeholders for each sector.

Workshops for the processed shrimp, carrageenan and dried mangoes sub-sectors were conducted early this month in Cebu. In Davao, the workshop, which will be held on November 13, will be for the fermented cacao/tablea sector.

The BOI said in a statement that Cebu City was chosen as the venue for the workshops on carrageenan, processed shrimp and processed mangoes because most of the major industry players and manufacturers are based in this area.

The cacao sector workshop will be held in Davao because the whole Davao Region accounts for about 80 percent of the cacao tablea production.

Since Central Visayas has been identified as a potential player in this sector, a techno-investment forum on the cacao industry is set for November 17 at the Cebu Grand Hotel.