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PHILIPPINE EMBASSY SHOWCASES THE BEST OF THE PHILIPPINES IN THE ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL 2022 FESTIVAL IN LOS RIOS

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Published: 06 October 2022

Philippine Embassy officials and personnel attend various trade, cultural, culinary and ceremonial activities throughout the Los Rios Region’s ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL 2022 from 1 to 2 October 2022.

(Santiago, 1-2 October 2022) As part of its efforts to maximize the Philippines’ economic and cultural diplomacy exposure, not only in the Santiago Region Metropolitana, but also in other regions and industrial hubs of Chile, the Philippine Embassy in Santiago, Chile, participated in the southern Chilean region of Los Rios’s ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL 2022 held at the Parque Saval in Valdivia on the weekend of 1 and 2 October 2022. The festival, celebrated as part of the 15^th anniversary of the Los Rios Region, saw the participation of hundreds of local SMEs (particularly Valdivia’s meat, cheese and beer industries), importers/exporters from Chile’s south, as well as country-wide industries and service providers from various sectors, including tourism. The 2-day event was organized as part of the said region’s Regional Productive Development Corporation, which seeks to promote and attract investments to/from southern Chilean provinces.

Encuentro Internacional 2022 featured multiple activities in the areas of trade and investment, culture and gastronomy, alongside the active the participation of the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Argentina as well as other foreign missions. An estimated 7,000 Chilean and foreign guests visited Parque Saval during the 2-day activity.  The Philippine Embassy was represented by Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. Jim Tito B. San Agustin and his spouse, Yvette San Agustin, Consul Dennis John Briones, Cultural Officer Jeffry Aranda, Finance Officer Vanessa Arevalo, local hire Pedro Cornejo and Filipino community representative, Ms. Lovelyn Embate Acanto.

The Embassy showcased Filipino designer items, handmaid decors, pearls and seashell ornaments, food snacks and packaged food samples (rice, coconut, cacao, banana chips, durian, mangosteen, etc.) from its Fiestas Filipinas kits, as well as distributed tourism booklets featuring Manila, Boracay, Palawan, Puerto Galera, Davao and other top touristic destinations. The booth also featured an enlarged backdrop of Boracay and Philippine dive sites, and a loop of several DOT promotional videos.

Heavy crowd favorite was the live cooking show by Cultural Officer Jeffry Aranda and Filipino community member Lovelyn Embate Acanto.  Their tandem featured a live cooking demonstration of the Filipino lumpiang shanghai, which was very recently voted as top 2 out of 50 best street foods globally by Taste Atlas. While cooking, Cultural Officer Aranda also read trivia questions on PHL-Chile relations and gave out special prizes (piña, cacao mix, etc.) to eager audience members. He and Ms. Acanto also manned a Filipino Food Booth which handed out generous samplings of lumpiang shanghai, adobo, Filipino pancit and mami, as well as buko pandan mix and other beverages. The Filipino Food Booth was such a hit that most of the time its line occupied majority of the Encuentro Internacional 2022’s secondary tent/event area.

CDA San Agustin and Consul Briones met with ProChile’s Director Jose Cayunguir and made a trade and investment presentation on prospective Philippine products to be exported to Chile, as well as local Los Rios products which have high potential to sell in the Philippine market. The Embassy outlined Filipino export priorities such as mangoes, dried mangoes, coconut and its byproducts, banana and banana chips, processed tuna, processed food, furniture, abaca, crabs and many more—given that these are the most promising for the South American market. Aside from identifying local distributors for these products, it was agreed that ProChile would similarly provide the Philippine Embassy with a list of the region’s top export commodities for assessment regarding import potential to the Philippines. The Embassy ended the presentation by featuring a Spanish video on the advantages of investing in the Philippines, a project of PTIC-Mexico.

The Philippine Embassy’s officials were also invited to a Kunstmann Brewery Tour (the largest beer company in Chile) to share best practices in beer production and assess import/export potential between Philippine and Chilean beer industries.

Consul Dennis Briones, Cultural Officer Jeffry Aranda and Finance Officer Vanessa Arevalo participated in a Regional Talk Show on Trade and Gastronomy to discuss Filipino products which would best sell in Chile and vice versa, as well as to provide a general summary of the Encuentro Internacional 2022 experience. Also discussed were ongoing negotiations regarding a prospective PHL-Chile free trade agreement (FTA) and the advantages of using each other’s countries as gateways to the Asian and Latin American markets.  The panel also touched on the unique advantages of the Los Rios Region given its internationally geared framework and export-led promotion targets catering to Asia and other new, underexplored markets.

On the final day of the event, CDA San Agustin accommodated an interview by the Los Rios Media where he stressed the importance of the Philippine Embassy’s participation in Encuentro Internacional 2022 and of actively promoting each other’s products, investment opportunities and top touristic destinations.  He also joined other ASEAN HOPs, other foreign dignitaries and local officials in attending and briefly addressing audiences during Encuentro Internacional 2022’s opening and closing ceremonies. END