Automobiles galore at the MOA

Last weekend, we held a highly-successful Auto Focus Motor Show & Auto Expo at the concert grounds of the SM Mall of Asia.  This is the 8th edition of this annual motor show which the motoring industry looks forward to so they can showcase their latest models in friendly competition with other manufacturers/importers in one fun, family-oriented venue. For the motoring public, it was a “one-stop-shop”, a wide arena of all the available models in the country, most of which are open for test-driving, right within the vast grounds. All one had to do was show a valid driver’s license and pick out the model that you wanted to test drive. I think this is the key to the motor show’s wide appeal – the opportunity to test-drive on the spot the car that you are aspiring for, maybe even planning to buy for yourself or for the family.

 Now that the Christmas season is fast descending on us, many families came in throngs and joined the festive mood at the expo, checking out cars and test-driving some models. The popular retro band The Flintstones and the Gang played during the four-day expo, much to the delight of the crowd.

The organizers conducted an informal survey of serious/committed buyers and all, I mean all, the manufacturers/importers there were excited about the visiting public’s response to their vehicles on display at the motor show. This is a good indication that the automotive industry in the Philippines is alive and well.

French brand’s comeback

It was an opportune time for Eurobrands Distributor Inc. (EDI) to publicly launch the Peugeot brand last Friday right at the Auto Focus Motor Show & Auto Expo.  For the first time, the Peugeot models were unveiled in a lavish ceremony at their pavilion which was fully-air conditioned and transformed into an events venue. An inter-active show was presented that highlighted the brand’s features like its interior refinement, intelligent instrumentation, less emission, the revolutionary microhybrid technology. Hill assist functions, and electric parking brakes, to mention some. Vernie Varga, still seductive, rendered a French song and Can-Can dancers capped the presentation with a rousing number.

EDI chairman Johnny Hernandez, president Felix Mabilog and marketing director Dong Magsajo (who used to be PhilStar’s motoring editor) together with Lionel Faugeres, gen. director of Peugeot Automobiles for ASEAN were pleased with the turnout of guests. Bobby Rosales, chief financial officer of the Alvarez Group of Automotive Companies, Maricar Parco, president of Asian Carmakers Corporation (BMW) and Ginia Domingo, president of Columbian Autocar Corporation (Kia) were among the esteemed guests at the launch.

How is the Philippine market’s acceptance of the Peugeot?  According to Felix Mabilog, they initially imported less than 200 units and these were all sold out in less than a month.

Coffee, cacao and coconut all together

It was an interesting interview that our Business & Leisure TV show’s staff had recently with Mr. Nicolas Matti, chairman of the Philippine Coffee Board. I don’t envy them with their share of problems over in that Board. Coffee, along with Cacao shares the same problem of low production and high importation.  With coffee, they estimate their shortage to be around 60,000 to 65,000 tons annually; with cacao, the shortage stands as around 37,000 tons for raw materials imports alone, not including the chocolate drinks that we import regularly. At an average price of, say a hundred pesos over the past three to five years, that translates to P10 billion importation.

Our coconut farmers continue to wrestle with the same problem over the years, and now that there is a pending levy of P59 billion (did I get this right Mr. Matti? The figure is astounding), the Coffee Board hopes that the coconut farmers will see the light and work with the country’s coffee and cacao industry.

The proposal involves inter-cropping coconut with coffee and cacao, and the Coffee Board has met several times with the Coconut Board to discuss this.  With the Coconut Board’s present estimated two million hectares of land, they can easily fill the shortage of the coffee industry which needs ideally about 250,000 hectares in order to produce 275 million coffee seedlings. In order to address the shortage, the coffee industry needs to augment production by at least one ton/hectare.

The market is definitely there. Nestle’ alone projects their coffee needs to hit 220,000 tons by 2020 to 2025, and that’s for Nestle’ alone.  At the moment, Nestle has two million coffee trees, which may sound like a lot to you and me, but the Coffee Board says they require about 275 million seedlings to cover our country’s coffee shortage. They do not know where to get this, and they hope they can spark a concerted effort towards this end. 

Planting coffee and cacao right under the coconut trees seems like a wonderful idea. According to Mr. Matti, there are new systems of planting coffee. The Vietnam Model where they plant with a spacing of 3m x 3m can produce  1,100 trees per hectare. They have developed excellent strains where they can get three kilos of coffee per tree, or 3,300 kilos of coffee additional production per hectare.

Mr. Matti shares that the Coffee Board went on several trips to neighboring coffee-producing countries together with officials of the Department of Agriculture. In West Java, they have reforested hectares and hectares of land to plant Arabica. In Vietnam, they were able to produce 1.4 million tons on 400,000-500,000 hectares or 2-1/2 tons per hectare.  Some even went higher at 3-5 tons/ha. In the Philippines, our national average is 300 – 500 kilos per hectare. The difference is staggering. That we have lagged behind so much is gut-wrenching.              

The coffee industry in the Philippines though, says Mr. Matti, is strong and robust. From a national consumption of 50,000 tons 10 years ago, we are now up to 100,000 tons, which makes the coffee industry a P50 billion industry right now.  In another 10 years, this could easily be a P100 billion industry, so we need to protect it.

The coconut farmers will do well to study the proposal of the coffee Board.  According to Mr. Matti, they can easily earn an extra income of at least P100,000/hectare on both coffee and cacao, at today’s prices, if they go into inter-cropping. Assuming of course that the crops are properly tended.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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