The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is calling on exporters to explore opportunities in emerging markets in Africa, South Asia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe with whom the agency is building stronger trade relations.

The trade agency’s Export Marketing Bureau (EMB) on Thursday said it plans conducting business missions to India, Bangladesh, Russia, Egypt and Ethiopia coming after an outbound business matching mission to Mexico with the Philippine Trade and Investment Center (PTIC).

The DTI-EMB said the countries were considered based on economic growth, gross domestic product per capita, population, ease of doing business, political climate as well as the Philippines’ trade and foreign policy directives.

Mexico, for one, has the biggest consumer potential among markets in Latin America. Its food and beverage consumption is seen to hike 15 percent by 2020. As part of the mission, Philippine exporters joined the Expo ANTAD (Asociasion Nacional de Tiendas de Autoservicio y Departamentales or National Association of Supermarkets and Department Stores) and Alimentaria Mexico 2019. The Expo ANTAD is Mexico’s largest food and beverage show.

The bureau is also organizing business missions to Mumbai, India, Dhaka and Bangladesh on 28 August until 4 September. India emerged as the country’s 15th top trading partner in 2018, as well as its 16th export market and 14th import supplier. DTI-EMB said boosting exports to India could help narrow the trade deficit between the two countries, which amounted to $1.2 billion as of 2018.

The country currently benefits from the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement which it is a signatory of, and under which India removed tariff on 94 percent of exports.

The DTI-EMB also encouraged exporters to take advantage of Bangladesh’s growing economy on the back of strong fixed investments, dynamic private consumption and accommodating monetary policy. Bangladesh’s GDP is projected to grow at a rate of 7.3 percent this year, or among the fastest in the world.

Lastly, the DTI-EMB and the PTIC Dubai is organizing a business matching mission to Ethiopia and Egypt in the last quarter of 2019. DTI-EMB said it will continue exploring key African markets as it explores further trade relations. Africa, the world’s second largest continent, has a population of 1.2 billion.

Earlier, DTI secretary Ramon Lopez said the trade agency is diversifying its markets for trade and investment opportunities in the face of the trade disputes between some of its biggest trade partners United States and China, as well as Japan and Korea.