FILIPINOfood manufacturers are being encouraged to export organic food and food products to Sweden.

In a letter to Department of Trade and Industry's Export Marketing Bureau Director Senen Perlada, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for International Economic Relations Laura del Rosario said that Philippine companies could also partner with Swedish counterparts to take advantage of this rapidly growing market.

Citing the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, del Rosario said the sale of organic food and food products in Sweden rose by 38 percent, to Swedish kroner (SKr) 15.5 billion in 2014 from SKr11.2 billion in 2013.

"(The increase in sales) is more than anywhere else in the world," she said.

Del Rosario said independent market monitor Ekoweb estimated that the market value of organic food has increased by an average of one billion kroner per year in the last seven years, but recently seen to be growing at four billion.

She said the Philippine embassy in Oslo, Norway, urged Filipino exporters to grab the chance, especially now that the Philippines is eligible for the European Union (EU) Generalized System of Preference (GSP) Plus.

The GSP Plus is a scheme that rewards developing countries that show a credible commitment to implementing core international conventions on human and labor rights, sustainable development and good governance by granting zero duty to over 6,000 eligible export products to the EU. PHILEXPORT

Published in the Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro newspaper on March 25, 2015.

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Exporters urged to tap Swedish food market