MEGAReach

Ref: Joy A. Gador

Tel: 533 97 - 32

PRESS RELEASE

CITEM breaks fresh ground

for Ph lifestyle exports to US
The countrys export promotions authority has just broken new ground in New York for
lifestyle exports spanning the multibillion-dollar market for home and fashion products and
accessories.
It was the countrys first-ever participation in the New York (NY) Now expo. Yet, with
11 home and eight fashion exhibitors in tow, the Center for International Trade Expositions
and Missions (CITEM) has successfully and strongly anchored the LifestylePhilippines brand
in the main hall of the famous Jacob Javitts Exhibition Center through a uniquely curated
pavilion that set it apart from the rest of the foreign participants.
CITEM Executive Director Rosvi C. Gaetos said it was very difficult for a first-time
NY Now exhibitor to get a space in the main exhibit halls, but the Philippine Pavilion landed
right there when the organizers decided to relocate the Artisan Resource Show.
Now we have very good chances of getting a space in the middle aisle next year
because the organizers saw the quality of our presentation, Gaetos said.
The Philippine Pavilion drew a total of 329 buyers from its hundreds of visitors, and
posted initial sales of $600,000 for the LifestylePhilippines brand in all of just five days of
brisk direct market encounters at the show.
These 19 Filipino exhibitors employ over 700 people, provide livelihood to over
1,500 subcontracted workers, and whose products make a worthy representation of the
LifestylePhilippines brand largely targeted at the middle and upper middle segment of the
market, Gaetos said.
While widely different from the DesignPhilippines brand that is extremely innovative,
trendsetting

or

trend-forward,

and

targeted

at

the

top-end

market

segment,

LifestylePhilippines is nonetheless distinctive in its being current and trendy because of its
superior craftsmanship, material quality and character, and commercial value and appeal,
thus providing unique options and vast product diversity to the NY Now visitors comprising
both importers and retailers across all of the 50 US states.
Explaining how the Philippine exhibits captured a lot of market attention that could be
converted into export sales, Gaetos said:
The NY Now proved to be a very good entry point in promoting LifestylePhilippines
in the US. Buyers were looking for diversity and fresh designs. Retailers were looking for
sources other than local. They are drawn to diversity and freshness of product as well as
material. Again, our strategy of a curated booth design worked to our advantage since most
of the other exhibitors under Artisan Resource used standard booths and were not presented
well. Buyers therefore were naturally drawn immediately to our booth.
Being largely produced in traditional, non-mechanized or partly-mechanized way, the
Philippine exhibits were classified under the artisanal resource, which is a unique showcase
by itself. However, precise volume quantification and valuation of this artisanal home and
fashion accessory market is difficult because of the largely handcrafted nature of its products
that are not identified separately in the main international system for trade statistics, or the
Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, and the worlds varying definitions
for handicrafts.
Nonetheless, an online published report for the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) surveyed the sales of the US distribution system, including direct-toconsumer channels, all totaling to some $60.5 billion in 2004 alone.
The report included jewelry, but clustered it under wall dcor and apparently did not
cover fashion and costume jewelry, whose total sales in the US was said to have increased
from 1999 to 2000 by 5% to $39.8 billion, and in the EU in 2003 to $25 billion.
Fashion and costume jewelry, including belts and bags and all other items in various
home and fashion product categories can be produced in the Philippines using natural and
indigenous materials and crafted in the distinctly creative Filipino way, Gaetos said.