MikeLigalig.com

By Aurelio A. Pena

People who specialize only in searching foreign buyers for local products and matching them with suppliers and producers for export are all dying not from natural death but from deliberate “killings” by Filipino exporters and suppliers themselves.

We’re saying this because I’ve tried operating part-time for several years as an “export agent”, ”manufacturer’s representative” and “export broker” but had very little success in earning the “right” commissions for my efforts. But being “right” in computing what rightly belongs to me had been rejected time and time again by big and small exporters I’ve dealt with here in Davao over the years -- which explains why I’m still languishing here below the poverty line.

Working under my own outfit Goldelyonn Export Import several years back, I helped opened the fruit market in the Russian coastal city of Vladivostok for a global brand of fresh mango, fresh papaya and fresh bananas exported by a multinational export firm based in Davao. That Russian city was dominated then only by Del Monte and Chiquita fresh fruits before a big US-based Russian trader started flooding the market with this top global brand.

Since I was contacted directly by my Russian friends Artem and Maxim from that Russian trading firm, this was a significant development for this Davao multinational export firm who had been looking for ways to penetrate the Russian market.

For my pioneering efforts in helping this exporting firm open this market, I was paid only a one-time small fee called “marketing consultancy fee” instead of a commission rate based on the number of carton boxes which I asked from the company. The company told me it was not legal for them to deal with “export agents” like me, so they had to find a way to pay me for my efforts.

The company didn’t even tell me that they had already started the trial shipments until I found out months later. This experience highlights the kind of risks export agents like me faced in this type of export transaction with local exporters. But eventually they paid up that small fee and everything was forgotten long after that.

But it’s not only the big exporters who avoid dealing with small export agents who operate with no capital like me. Even banana cooperatives who oversee the operations of small banana growers also seek the help of export agents to find foreign buyers for them. But when the buyers are found and export deals are done, most banana coops, just like the big multinationals, also try to avoid paying the commission to export agents. I'm not sure yet whether or not this is now the prevalent trend in the entire Philippine export industry.

Killing the “middleman” in the export deals by both banana cooperatives and multinational exporters has always been the battle cry of local exporters, a trait that I find only among Filipino exporters -- not among foreign exporters that I dealt with over the years. As an export agent, I cannot succeed here in the Philippines -- exporters “kill” export agents here. That’s why I’ve accepted this “death” and has started "burying" myself.

This is a far cry from the import deals I had in the early 1990’s as an “import-export agent,” representing foreign exporters like the Taiwanese, Vietnamese and even the Chinese. The Taiwanese, for instance, respect the small percentage (5 to 10 percent) you add on top of the quoted price as “agent commission” and promptly sends the full amount to your bank account by telegraphic bank transfer after an export shipment from their country -- a standard operating procedure in international trade.

If my opinion is merely my own misconception, just let me know. But I've gone thru several export deals to convince myself that exporters are now out "killing" export agents in this country. (PNA)

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