The Department of Trade and Industry Region 8 once again will hold its BAHANDI Eastern Visayas Trade Fair this October 4-8, 2017 at the Megatrade Hall 1, Mega B, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City.
Now on its 20th year, DTI 8 opens the annual 5-day exhibit and fair of the best products from the six provinces of Eastern Visayas. This year, it carries the theme, “Breaking Grounds for Borderless Markets,” in line with the Philippines’ hosting of the ASEAN Summit which promotes the strengthening of free trade among its member nations and with the rest of the world.
The trade fair is made more meaningful as it features the products of micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) who have been assisted to recover from the Super Typhoon Yolanda — nurtured to break new grounds in technologies, product designs and innovations, and challenged to access the more sophisticated and growing borderless market.
This is a banner year for the producers in moving towards an independent position.
A total of 125 MSMEs from the Processed Food, and Homestyle and Wearables sector are expected to join the fair. A third of these producers are graduates of the Kapatid Mentor Me Program that are also mostly enrollees of the OTOP Next Generation Program. The trade fair also serves as the culmination of the various DTI assistance extended to these MSMEs.
Last year, BAHANDI was able to generate a total sales of PHP 17, 354, 359.00. This year, it targets a total sales of PHP 16.5 M; with the flock of institutional buyers, it has become a trend that actual sales would exceed the targeted.
This event really inspires and further boosts Region 8 producers in aggressively accessing the bigger markets with their best products in their continued quest to grow their enterprise and uplift their family income, those of their workers, and their farmer-suppliers of raw materials.