Singaporeans keen on Davao avocado

DAVAO CITY— The Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc (DCCCII) said Singapore is keen on importing avocado from the province.

DCCCII president Arturo Milan said DCCCII and local government officials from Davao met with the Singaporean Fruit and Vegetable Importers Association who are looking to import the Philippine fruit.

“In our last travel together with the LGU, we met with Singaporean fruit and vegetable importers to promote investments and trade and one (exciting) area is the importation of of fruits from Davao. One fruit that has a very big potential in Singapore is avocado,” according to Milan.

Singapore imports avocado from Australia at present. They normally use avocado as ingredients for their salad.

“Malaysians and Singaporeans are big on avocado. If they are importing the fruit from Australia, there must be a big market in Singapore. We told them Davao has a lot of avocado,” Milan said.

He also said Davao is talking with the Singaporean Chief of Mission in developing the idea into a full business and trade opportunity between Davao and Singapore.

According to him, the delegation visited the food terminal which plays a vital role for trading activities in Singapore.

Singapore does not have storage facilities for the fruit, prospectively forcing their importers to deliver them to consumers at once,” Milan said.

He is optimistic Davao City’s own food terminal in Toril targeted to start operating this year will serve as a marketing platform for the produce. The food terminal was meant to improve farmer-consumer trading via organized farmer organizations.

“This is where farmers can sell their goods. This gives farmers the assurance they already have a market,” he said.

Construction of the food terminal cost the Department of Agriculture in Region XI (DA-XI) P70 million.