China emerging as ultimate market for Filipino traders

SURIGAO CITY – With a population of over 1.28 billion and still growing, China is emerging as the ultimate market that Filipino businessmen should aim for.

"China, with its impressive economic performance since the reform period, increasing affluence and huge population is the ultimate market. Filipino businessmen should look at China not only as the ultimate challenge but also as the ultimate market with its huge market base," said Archimedes Gomez, commercial attaché and director of the Philippine Trade and Industry Center based in Guanzhou, China.

Speaking before over 600 delegates to the 11th Mindanao Business Conference held here in Surigao City, Gomez urged Filipino businessmen to take a serious look and get a crack in the growing China market.

China, he said, had consumers of 100 million as of last year, bigger than the population of the entire Philippines. And it has been predicted that by 2010, China would have a 400 million strong middle-class which would mean an equally strong purchasing power, nearly the size of the ASEAN today.

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization last year is also considered as a welcome development, paving the way for the entry of imported products into the country’s promising market.

"Exporters, however, who want to sell to China should be prepared to understand the country’s complex business environment," said Gomez, explaining that policies and regulations are most often unclear constituting knotty issues that also get in the way, making China a challenging market to penetrate.

"Doing business in China though will not be easy because of market imperfections, but those who are willing to accept the challenge and are able to offer the best quality and value for money products will surely survive and reap benefits in the long run," Gomez added.

At present Japan, the US, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Singapore, Russia, United Kingdom and Malaysia are the top 10 trading partner countries of China with a total of $510 billion with a record growth of at least 7.6 percent.

The top 10 exporting countries to China were Japan, Taiwan, the US, Korea, Germany, Hong Kong, Russia, Malaysia, Australia and Thailand. The imported products that were able to enter Chinese market included electric and electronics, machinery, computer and telecom, crude petroleum oil, transport equipment, steel sheets and plates, aircraft, soya beans.

In its bilateral trading with the Philippines, China has also moved to ninth slot from the 10th place as the country’s top trading partners. And since the Philippines revived active commercial relations with China in 1976, trade surplus was achieved in the country’s favor at $38 million.

Gomez also said that China ranked as the Philippines’ second biggest market for copper cathodes and third largest importer of bananas as of April this year.

He also urged Filipino businessmen to study further the intricacies of the Chinese market that also involve a great deal of local protectionism.