Prestigious foreign buyers of lifestyle and creative products flocked to Manila to seek out suppliers of their local and global market requirements.

The foreign buyers include a large contingent from Taiwan, Spain, and a multinational corporate delegation from Hallmark, a global supplier of greeting cards, gifts and giftwraps, and keepsake ornaments.

“Manila FAME’s October exhibition is expected to yield higher export sales than last April’s because of its much bigger delegation of foreign buyers,” Gaetos said.

“Taiwan’s 21 buyers alone in Manila Fame’s April show registered booked and negotiated purchases of almost a million dollars, and we invited some 200 of them to our October show,” Gaetos pointed out.

Taiwan was ranked the 20th richest country in the world in terms of per capita income, according to the data released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in September this year. The island state’s purchasing power parity (PPP)-based per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was estimated at US$35,604 in 2010, which puts Taiwan’s ranking higher than UK, France, Japan, and South Korea.

Also in 2010, Taiwan posted record highs of US$274.4 billion in exports and US$251.4 billion in imports. Philippine products imported by the 21 Taiwanese buyers in Manila Fame last April were gifts and premium, home accent and decors, lamps and lightings, furniture, and garden accessories.

“Taiwan Economic Affairs Vice Minister Shih Yen-shiang is supporting our efforts in organizing buying delegations to CITEM events,” Gaetos revealed, citing communications with Economic Affairs Director Dita Angara-Mathay of the Manila Economic Cultural Office (MECO) in Taipei.

“MECO has conducted an invitational campaign targeting 200 Taiwanese companies drawn from its database of active importers of lifestyle products,” Gaetos added.

Aside from the Taiwanese delegation, buyers from Spain will also be coming to the show. Through Gaetos’s recent selling mission in Spain and the goodwill of the 19
Philippine Trade Representative in Madrid, Althea Antonio, she was able to convince El Corte Ingles, Europe’s leading international department store chain, to send the company’s buyers to Manila FAME to check out the marketability and reliability of supply of Philippine lifestyle exports.

“Their (El Corte’s buyers) forthcoming visit to Manila FAME re-established relations between this retail giant and our lifestyle export industry,” Gaetos stressed, saying an official invitation to the company’s CEO would soon come from the Philippine ambassador to Spain.

At the same time, CITEM is tapping Regalo Fama for next year’s Manila FAME. Regalo Fama is the association of Spanish manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of gifts and housewares.

“Regalo Fama’s members usually visit the Hong Kong and China fairs in October, thus organizing a buying mission to the Manila FAME October show is too late at this time. Nonetheless, we can capture their members in the Hong Kong and China October fairs and offer them a visit to Manila FAME. Regalo Fama general manager Gema Casas Carmona offered to publicize our offer and circulate it to the members as soon as possible,” Gaetos explained.

Lifestyle and creative products accounted for 12.7 percent or $6.5 billion of total merchandise exports of $51.5 billion in 2010.

As the export marketing arm of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), CITEM is headlining the Philippines as the primary design and product source hub in the Asian region as it pursues demand-driven design innovations, which will be showcased in the 54th edition of the Manila FAME in October.

The October show aptly carries the theme “Weaving Dreams” as it brings together the country’s other major sourcing events to brand the Philippines as “Asia’s Premier Design Destination.” These events are the Manila Now, Cebu Next, and Bijoux Cebu.

Also interwoven in the show are three strategic demand-driven thematic designs Mood Indigo, Naturalist, and Graffiti.


For more information on Manila FAME, visit www.manilafame.com, or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .