More investors are looking at the Philippines for possible opportunities as a French company proposed to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. establishing an agro-logistics hub in Clark, Pampanga during a meeting in Brussels.
The Chief Executive was in the capital city of Belgium from Dec. 12 to 14 to attend the ASEAN-EU Commemorative Summit, where he outlined his administration’s goals at the summit including agricultural, trade, and maritime ties.
He welcomed the proposal since this will bolster his administration’s food security initiatives, which serve as a crucial part of his government’s socio-economic agenda.
“Food supply is critical for everybody now. And so this kind of market, the concept, is going to be important as we continue to develop our agriculture sector,” Marcos, who met with business leaders on the event’s sidelines, said.
“The other side is the logistics because, as you have touched up on, the Philippines is in a very good location,” the President added.
French firm SEMMARIS, led by its executive director Benoit Juster, shared the company’s intent to develop agro-logistics in New Clark City by building a wholesale market for fresh products with an organized and efficient food supply and value chain.
He believes the agro-logistics hub would also boost cooperation with Manila regarding food safety and security.
A relatively new interdisciplinary field in the agricultural sector, agro-logistics includes the management of supply chains of agricultural products and raw materials from production to delivery to the consumer.
It aims to combine agricultural production, marketing, management, and logistics.
Juster said the company has already jumpstarted the work in Clark.
“In Clark, we have carried out feasibility studies, so we have a masterplan, we have the estimation of the cost of the works. And so we can start quickly in Clark,” he shared.
The hub would guarantee food safety and security for Filipinos.
Juster said “the hub also seeks to promote local production with fair prices to farmers and lower prices for consumers, improve logistics and decrease traffic congestion in Manila.”
For Marcos, the hub has the potential to “serve as a facility that will link buyers and sellers of food/agri-products both locally and in the Southeast Asian region.”
SEMMARIS is a semi-public company managing the Rungis International Market, the principal market of Paris.