DTI to promote OTOP products online

CEBU, Philippines - To reach a bigger market both locally and internationally for small and medium enterprises, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is going to make use of online marketing to further help the industry.

DTI Undersecretary for Regional Operations and Development Group Merly Cruz said that they see the increasing support of the public for online use.

Cruz said during a recent interview that they have introduced the concept to entrepreneurs of their One Town One Product fair and they have reaped good feedback from interested SME players. 

According to Cruz, this new strategy would certainly help the local MSME players prove their presence in the export market and help them introduce their products not only to the local market but to other countries as well which would mean bigger income for the entrepreneurs.

“This would compliment the efforts of the SME players by going global,” said Cruz who explained that this is one of the efforts of the government to move further the domestic base which they hope they could fully start by next year. 

Cruz said that for now, DTI and Go Negosyo are developing the website where all the products of the SME players will be displayed and seen worldwide.

During the OTOP Visayas Fair 2009 held in SM City Cebu on November 18 to 22, the participants from regions 6, 7 and 8 had the chance to register their businesses for the website.

Cruz said that the virtual market would be able to cater all SME players in the country that are part of the OTOP.

DTI-7 Regional Director Aster Caberte said that this will be a big help for the entrepreneurs especially in introducing the local products to the export industry.

She said that at present for Central Visayas there are not too many players yet in the export industry but they are doing a lot of means to boost the industry by helping the players develop their products and packages.

Caberte said that they still need to focus also on the production of large orders which is still a problem for local players since most could still not accommodate huge orders.

But she said that this is the reason that the office has been strengthening the clustering approach, which instead of just one company dealing with orders and the production, it would have the participation and help of others in order to produce the volume needed. —AJ de la Torre