Monaco-based firm eyes import of coconut oil, products

Photo from Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol’s Facebook page via PNA

MANILA — The agricultural sector seems to be gaining from the various inter-country visitations of this administration, after an international company makes an arrangement to buy Philippine produce.

The Department of Agriculture sealed a deal with BANEX Corporation, a huge name in the agro-industrial business.

The Monaco-based group has signified its intention to import a huge volume of coconut oil and other coconut products from the Philippines starting immediately.

BANEX Corporation representative Igor Malyshkov, who visited the Philippines on Monday, said the interest of BANEX Corporation in Philippine agricultural products was a result of the visit of President Rodrigo Duterte to Moscow, Russia in May 2017.

The corporation, which also has offices in Moscow and Ecuador, will also be importing other agricultural products from the Philippines like palm oil, bananas and pineapple to be sold in some 5,000 outlets all over Eastern Europe.

“This is a totally new area for us and we are going to be dealing with new and exciting products,” Malyshkov said in an exclusive interview with ABS-CBN’s Henry Omaga-Diaz on Monday.

In a statement posted on Facebook by Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol, Malyshkov decided to visit the Philippines after weeks of negotiations between the agriculture secretary and intermediaries.

Malyshkov said the interest to import coconuts from the Philippines is due to the huge demand in the Eastern European market where consumers are becoming more health conscious.

BANEX Corporation is mainly involved with banana growing in Ecuador which it sells to the Russian Federation and the Eastern European markets.

He said BANEX will now venture into the trading of coconut products, including palm oil, pineapple and bananas.

“The market is huge and we have the infrastructure and network of over 5,000 outlets to distribute the products that we will source from the Philippines,” he said.

On Tuesday, representatives of the Philippine Coconut Authority, a team from the banana and pineapple industry and the North Cotabato Palm Oil Corporation, will brief Malyshkov and his group on the business prospects in the Philippines.

He said the importation of coconut and palm oil will start immediately after supply agreements with local oil milling companies have been signed.

This development is expected to push up prices of coconut and palm oil, which have been very low in the last few months and save farmers from further hardships.