In her visit to Sulu yesterday, the President noted that the country is the sixth biggest supplier of carageenan, a product derived from a seaweed locally known as agar-agar.
"We have to maximize the supply of carageenan because the Philippines is the sixth biggest supplier of carageenan in the world," Mrs. Arroyo told the residents.
Mrs. Arroyo went to Luuk, a remote coastal town in Sulu that thrives on fishing, culture of lobsters and crabs and cultivating agar-agar.
Seaweed producers, who met in Zamboanga City the other week for a two-day conference, are expected to increase if not double their export of agar-agar and generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.