MANILA, Philippines — On September 21-25, 2011, the OTOP National Trade Fair/Expo to be participated by 272 SMEs (small and medium enterprises) coming from all the 16 regions all over the country will be held at the Megamall Halls 1 and 2, 5th Level, Building B, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City.

The Expo is open for retail selling of OTOP products from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free. The organizing entity of OTOP Expo is the Bureau of Domestic Trade (BDT) of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) headed by Director Marievic Bonoan, with the cooperation and support of the DTI Regional and Provincial Offices under the DTI Regional Operations and Development Group headed by Undersecretary Merly Cruz.

One may ask: What does OTOP stand for? OTOP is the acronym for One Town One Product program of DTI launched in 2004. The OTOP program of DTI is patterned after the Japan’s One Village One Product project.

Has the OTOP program of DTI succeeded in stimulating the economic growth in the countryside? Definitely… since OTOP (for the period 2006 to 2010) has accomplished the following:

• Created 444,709 jobs

• Generated P11.197 billion in investments

• Generated P16.558 billion in domestic sales

• Generated $677.20 billion in export sales

• Assisted 58,155 MSMEs

Out of the 1,518 towns and cities in the country, 1,497 have already identified their OTOP product. The OTOP project of DTI brings together the local executives of the cities and towns and the various government agencies involved in livelihood projects.

One of the towns with an identified OTOP product is Labo, Camarines Norte. Labo’s OTOP product is piña fiber products. It was through the cooperation of various line agencies of the government like the Fiber Industry Development Authority (FIDA), Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), the local executives of Labo, and the DTI (as the lead agency) that made possible the launching of the Piña Fiber Production and Processing on March 3, 2006.

Earlier, the Labo Progressive Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LPMPC) ventured into the production of machine decorticated fiber and handwoven piña cloth – with the cooperation of the local government unit (LGU) of Labo. This project of the LPMPC was eventually chosen as the OTOP product of Labo.

Today, the project to produce machine-decorticated fiber, handwoven piña cloth made of knotted fiber continues because the piña fiber products are gradually gaining acceptance in the local market. A local garments manufacturer of plain and embroidered piña cloth places orders of plain and embroidered piña cloth from Labo.

Another foreign owned company regularly orders piña fiber of 1,500 kgs. every month. Also, since 2006, LPMPC has been a partner of the Philippine Textile Research Institute (PTRI) in the development of poly piña cloth (polyester with piña) proposed as a tropical fabric for office uniforms of millions of government employees.

The DTI Provincial head of Camarines Norte (of which Labo is a town), very proud of Labo’s piña fiber project is Director Ernesto M. Pardo. He is under the direct supervision of Ms. Joy Blanco, the DTI Regional Director of Bicol.

In Bicol as well as in the other 15 Regions, OTOP has been generating much enthusiasm for the MSMEs (micro, small, medium enterprises) sector. Over the past five (5) years (2006-2010), the OTOP programs in the Bicol Region has developed Six Hundred Six (606) MSMEs (Micro, small, medium enterprises) and assisted Four Thousand Two Hundred Seventeen (4,217) existing MSMEs and generated 12,317 jobs.

Let’s support the DTI OTOP project. Let’s visit the OTOP Expo scheduled on September 21-25, 2011. Finally, let’s patronize OTOP products.

Have a joyful day!