Tacloban City – Prospects are bright this year for the coconut industry in Eastern Visayas, according to the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA).
Joel Pilapil, PCA assistant regional manager here, said that the coconut industry in the region will continue to grow as more coconut-based are being established in Eastern Visayas and the price of copra will likely rise as the demand for the product in the domestic and international market has been increasing.
He said the prevailing price of copra in the region now is from P22.00 to P23.60 per kilo, which is very much higher than the P2.50 per kilo price of the product several months ago.
Last year, however, the average price of the copra or dried coconut meat was P16.71 per kilo, which was lower than the average price in P17.39 per kilo in 2005.
Aside from the good price of copra, he said that local coconut farmers now have as already market the several coconut-based plants operating in Eastern Visayas.
He said there are now around eight plants in the region that uses coconut as raw material, like coconut husk in making coir, coconut shells as fuel and in making activated and granulated carbon, and coconut meat in producing edible oil and virgin coconut oil.
“Each plant requires 10 metric tons a day,” Pilapil said, referring to coconut shells that plants in the region now buy from farmers. These plants use coconut charcoal in running their boilers instead of bunker fuel, which has become costly, he explained.
Among these plants are the New Edible Oil in Tanauan, Leyte; the Samar Coco in Calbayog City; and the Visayan Oil and SC Global in Baybay, Leyte.
Eastern Visayas, which has about 370,000 coco farmers and produces nearly billion nuts a year, is the third largest coconut-producing region in the country. Among the provinces in the region, Leyte is the number one coconut production of about million.
In 2006, the total products exports earning for Eastern Visayas amounted to US$47,753,132. According to a CPA data, this was higher by just 2 percent compared to the export earning in 2005.
Cochin oil was the number one coconut-based commodity export for the region, followed by copra cake and crude coconut oil, among others.
The same data showed that Japan bought US$31,511,132 worth of coconut products from the country in 2006. Other countries that purchased coconut products from the region were France (US$3,827,750), Malaysia (US$3,484,250), Indonesia (US$3,150,000), Singapore (US$2,120,000), Vietnam (US$647,000), and Taiwan (US$296,250).
