Export Expert

E L I P I N T O - M A N S O R is surveying the cavernous World Trade Center, a venue so immense it ought to have a "lost and found" section to locate missing friends. Perhaps resigned to the litany of well-wishers that slows her progress, she takes small measured steps. The tall, slim and angular Pinto-Mansor is easily recognizable, dressed as she is all in white except for startlingly yellow shoes. She stops often to chat good-naturedly with buyers, exporters, designers and visitors, greeting each by name, flashing her trademark toothy smile. Even to the uninitiated, it is obvious she rules this roost–in a mother hen sort of way.

The event she is overseeing with palpable pride is the Manila F.A.M.E. International, an annual furniture, gifts, holiday decor and houseware trade fair that has become an institution in the country. It has conferred on the Philippines a must-see status among knowledgeable global buyers, and bestowed on its exhibitors a certain badge of honor, proof that in their fields they are ensconced at or near the top of the pecking order. In four short days last month, Manila F.A.M.E. quietly raised over US$100 million in orders. Walking around the booths set up in 20,000 square meters of sprawling exhibition space, it is impossible not to swell with pride at the astonishing creativity of the Filipino. After the incomprehensible barbarism of the May 1 Malacañang assault, it is a profound relief to know that Filipinos can accomplish so much more with their hands than hurling rocks and molotov cocktails.

Araceli Maria Pinto-Mansor has been Executive Director of the Center For International Trade Expositions & Missions (citem), the mandated organizer of Manila F.A.M.E. and other trade fairs, for the past 11 years. Her tenure has spanned four presidents. Besides the expected organizational skills, Pinto-Mansor has, over the years, displayed a remarkably stout heart in resisting overtures from influential personalities expecting a fast track into citem fair participation. "We get some political pressure but if you make exceptions, it becomes chaotic. We just tell them there are rules we must stick to. We don’t want this to be politicized," she says simply.

There are obvious advantages to joining trade fairs. It facilitates face-to-face selling. Trade fairs provide the opportunity for order-taking and the gathering of immediate feedback from buyers and other members of the trade. The exhibitor is then able to immediately negotiate sales as well as assess the viability of his product. But obtaining acceptance as a participant is half the battle.

"We get a lot of applications, more than a thousand. We cannot accept everybody. There are space limitations as well as the non-preparedness of companies, both in product and financial capacity. They may receive lots of orders but can not deliver because of manufacturing constraints. Before they qualify, we do factory visits. They must have the facility to manufacture," she says.

According to the Executive Director, around 700 exhibitors made the grade this year. Really, the range of products on display is breathtaking–mosaic resin lamps, flower vases that double as candleholders then mutate into a fruit bowl, cushions made from pandan fibers, furniture crafted from abaca and banana threads, nearly legless dining tables, ottomans detailed with organza and raffia, and even seats upholstered in recycled denim. The mind boggles at the seemingly boundless imagination of the designs and the minutiae so dexterously executed by Filipino craftsmanship.

Pinto-Mansor explains, "Buyers come to the Philippines because of the new designs compared to the other regional exhibits. They are pleasantly surprised to see us come up with fresh ideas all the time. However, we are also known to be more expensive, probably the most expensive in Asia. The true edge we have is our designs."

According to Art Dimaano, citem’s Deputy Executive Director, some 2,000 international buyers attended the fair, resulting in an P80 million windfall for the Pasay and Manila local governments. They stay in plush hotels, dine out in style and generally share the Filipino propensity to return home with assorted pasalubong. But it’s not easy spotting buyers as they go about their business–it appears they conduct themselves in cloak-and-dagger secrecy.

Discreetly pointing out one cautious purchaser, Pinto-Mansor relates, "He owns a trendsetting shop in Germany and is very careful not to be seen talking to any of the stallholders because other buyers will follow suit. Buyers don’t want their merchandise copied so they keep to themselves. They simply look at the booths and then meet the sellers outside."

But not everyone is happy. Some exhibitors have been grumbling about the diminishing returns from the fairs in the last couple of years; during this time they claim citem’s participation fee has increased by 30 percent. They maintain that this year the actual number of international buyers has dwindled down to around 300. citem establishes trade contacts partly through its On-Line Catalogue Program, and exporters post contact details and display product shots in this cyber showcase. But exhibitors feel that what is sorely needed are more trade missions that expressly and personally attract buyers to the country.

Perhaps most damning is the charge that Pinto-Mansor plays favorites with Movement 8, her and renowned designer Budji Layug’s brainchild. In 1999, Movement 8 was formed comprising a handful of ostensibly the country’s most creatively gifted furniture designers. While the group’s work is undeniably awe-inspiring, detractors protest that Movement 8’s products are unfairly being promoted at the expense of smaller exporters. But the criticism appears muted and isolated; it has not spilled into open rebellion.

She is set to retire from the job she has occupied for more than a decade in the next few months. She will leave knowing that she was instrumental in shepherding several small-scale companies into pastures that, in their infancy, appeared much too green to aim for. Pinto-Mansor is particularly proud of the great strides made by the local paper industry, which has been around since the early 1800s when a factory manufactured paper from reeds and cogon. "We helped develop the paper industry and as a result, a lot of companies have sprung up with very interesting applications. As a matter of fact, the Philippines is number one in the application of handmade paper as objects," she says.

The graphics arts and interior design graduate has also been a sort of style policewoman, gentle in her prodding but with firm ideas on design sensibilities. "Subconsciously, citem has done a lot to educate the taste of Filipinos and to improve the product. In the Philippines, we don’t have a distinct style. Even worse, we inherited a love for borloloy. But we are trying to clean up our act."

Before leaving, she is still rah-rahing another major project: an E-Services fair scheduled for the end of June. It will be a grand showcase of Filipino IT (information technology) and e-commerce capability. Says Pinto-Mansor, "We have several talents to market–animation, transcription, software development."

The event is expected to be the biggest gathering ever of the country’s top corporate, institutional and individual IT achievers in four focus areas: E-Services, for companies providing world-class IT services; E-Trade, for companies promoting or offering products on the Internet; E-Citizen, for government agencies with services accessible via the Internet; and E-nnovation, for individuals, schools and other institutions with marketable IT innovations.

"E-Services" will leverage the country’s competitive advantages vis-a-vis the emerging global trend to outsource IT and IT-enabled business processes to countries rich in low-cost IT and IT-skilled professionals. The Philippines has been getting a growing share of this market that is projected to be valued at US$140 billion by 2008 and is expected to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs in finance, human resources and accounting services, market research, engineering design, animation and content creation, data encoding and transcription, and software development, among others. The country is strongly positioned for this market primarily due to its global recognition as the world’s richest source of knowledge workers, hailed as much for their IT skills and facility with the English language as for their multi-cultural flexibility and superior work ethic.

Until recently a confessed techno-phobe, Pinto-Mansor surprised staff and friends by mastering the art of text messaging and taking to a keyboard to actually work on a computer. But such personal limitations do not cramp her appreciation of the vast potentials of the IT industry for the Philippine economy.

Thus, at the E-services fair next month, expect Pinto-Mansor to once again take her short calculated steps, mingling with the fair’s visitors, confident that all the months of preparation will ensure a smooth fair–and if a problem does crop up, it will be handled with the equanimity of one who has seen it all before.