APFTI visits Otop Center here

INABANGA – Around 20 designers from the Advocates of Philippine Fair Trade, Inc. (APFTI) Wednesday visited the One-Town-One-Product (Otop) Center here.

Ma. Eleanore Abisado, Otop manager showed the group around – from the display area to the dyeing and bleaching vats. She expressed the Jumamoy administration's gratitude to the group for choosing the local Otop Center – Region 7's best – as one of the destinations in their field exposure.

Betinio led the group. The recognitions the center has received from all over the country aroused their curiosity, prompting them to include it in their itinerary, Betinio explained. The craftsmanship in the products displayed easily makes them world class and therefore globally competitive, he added.

APFTI focuses on a fair trade between the employer and the employees and among business establishments having the same product lines, transparency in business management, safe working conditions and child-labor discouragement. It also supports Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), he said.

At the same time, Betonio said, APFTI wants to know how they can also assist Inabanga's loomweaving Industry, particularly where design, training and product development are concerned.

Mayor Josephine Socorro Jumamoy welcomed this, saying she wants to open more opportunities for the raffia industry: widen its marketing base, and modernize product designs that conform to the buyer's market,.

Jumamoy's zeal and dedication in the promotion of this century old industry goes with her thrust of reducing poverty in this town especially in the grassroots.