You are now in: In Their View Archive : 2002 Q4

• Is it still safe and profitable to do business in the Philippines?
• The transport industry is not doing so well. What is your company doing about this? (November 28, 2002)
• What are the prospects for 2003?

"The peace and order problem is very limited to certain areas in Mindanao and there are no exports coming from that area. These are already factored in, so this is not really a problem for exporters. Speaking in behalf of the exports sector, I think it still is profitable. The image problem of the country is not really so much of a concern for exporters than for investors. Exporters just hand their products to the national market and buyers don't really care... the only problem is buyers tend to be time-sensitive around here so exporters have to meet them outside of the country."

"The same question can be asked of any other country. I suppose there are certain countries that would be higher risk than others. For example, in our business where security is very lax... The travel advisories are certainly not helping trade either. We're losing investors. What we must do is to work extra hard to prove that ours is a country that is still viable to do business with. That also depends on how well the government runs the maritime and transport industry and also how well we project ourselves in the international community."

"Of course it is. Although the margins are no longer that great and not very attractive. There are still areas that could give good revenues such as special projects that can be secured by forwarders, logistic services and support services. However, it's also a fact that not all areas could be profitable as such."

"It's still profitable. That's from a Filipino's point of view. But I don't know how many other positive-thinking Filipinos (like me) there are. Hopefully, business will be better this year compared with last year. That's how I look at it on a micro level. For our company alone, we are projecting about 15% increase in business for this year and in just two weeks' time, I see the business already gearing up. Business will still be profitable provided there is stability in the peso-dollar exchange rate."

"We have to be positive and optimistic for our businesses to grow. And even if the economy is bad, there are businessmen who make good profits and convert these weaknesses in their favor."

"In tough times, we watch all our costsÖ fuelÖ maintenanceÖ so that we'd still be able to provide a high quality of service in the country and anywhere in the world. So far, our service level is still very good."

"When you say transport industry, we're just one little part of that industryÖ But, what we've done is to increase productivity. And obviously, we've made some very significant investments for the coming years."

"It's not really not doing wellÖ the volume of cargoes coming in even increased. Maybe both exports and imports are down by about 6% to 7%, but you would see for ICTSI, they are going to hit the 1-million TEU mark anytimeÖ It's very positive. So we are surviving. Remember that for every difficulty, there's always an opportunity."

"Actually, that's the risk of doing business. Beforehand, we must be able to foresee that things like that are bound to happen and are unavoidable. For our part, we increase sales and as much as possible, aim for less operational expenses. Cost cutting is not really necessary; we just have to do a little 'belt-tightening'. We also go an extra mile in terms of marketing."

"Asian Terminals is holding on so far. In fact, I think the transport industry is not that badÖ who says it is? Well, we try to gain high productivity at lower costs."

"So far, there have been no significant decreasesÖ We just aim for higher productivity at lower costsÖ"

"DHL is fortunate enough not to feel the tremendous effects of the economic crisis on the business. First, we operate an unmatched global system of 36 hubs, supported by 4,070 offices worldwide. This allows us to make up for losses, whenever a region or a part of it experiences a fallback."

"Everybody knows that business next year will be more difficult... especially, after the September 11 attack which we haven't really recovered from yet. Of course, it's gonna be tough, so we're adapting measures that would atleast combat these..."

"No matter what, we still believe that there's going to be a modest improvement in the market to the US. US is basically now our major trading partner. Maybe in time, as we move along towards next year, we'll begin to see some changes also on how we gain well... especially with this new, the application of the new inbound custom manifest..."

"Our targets have been provided slight improvements... increases. We are very much inclined to pursue our major targets... we will use all of the resources we have to implement these targets. We have majorprojects in the pipeline and one of them is networking. We will try to cover the whole Philippines."

"I suspect that come 2003, the import volume will grow as that of the export because a lot of economic zones and small enterprises are continuously opening up. That is why, in Mercury Freight, the concentration on both export and import, for next year, will be 50-50. Also, we are expanding our domestic linkage by tying up with one of the biggest domestic logistics company in the country to enhance our groupage services."

"For the company, next year will be upbeat because now that we are known more in the industry, we expect that more logistics companies are going to avail of our services."