Philippines Books

Are There Business Opportunities To Be Had In The Philippines? We Take A Look Each Month.

So far I know of people who are getting involved in bat guano, tempura cart sales, sari sari wholesale supply and a few other interesting ventures, including real estate development, sea shells, prescription eyewear and more! The common denominator seems to be the desire to get involved in something. However, a word of warning.

A business in the Philippines can indeed be started on a frayed shoestring, unlike something you might try back home. But be aware that the less you invest the less it will produce. This has nothing to do with any law of diminishing returns, it is simply that the successful businesses here are successful for the same reasons a business is successful back in the UK or America.

If you have insufficient capital, or a poor location or no real business plan then just because it is only a few dollars to get Dong going doesn’t mean it has any special chance of success or even survival just because it is started in the Philippines. I was in a Chilli’s franchise tonight. Cost of the meals are over P200 and well into P400 with some even more. Drinks were fairly pricey too, but you can have the buy one take one beer deal for P65 that works out pretty good value. Anyway, the points I am making are twofold. Firstly it took a fair chunk of change to put up a decent business like Chilli’s in the first place and secondly, there is money in this country!

There may not be much to spread around in the province where the asawa comes from but in Quezon City there is a lot of it! I was speaking to a car dealer who brings in “gray imports”. On his lot he had a VW Tuareg, a Dodge Ram, a Mercedes, three Honda’s and so on. Plus a 2004 Range Rover HSE going for P6 million! Given the fact Land Rover pulled out of the country due to the gray import market back dooring them for billions, I wonder where the eventual buyer will get it serviced? Woe betide him if it breaks down or the computer chip needs a zap, nobody has the diagnostic gear to fix it!

So between the gray imports and the authorised importers, there has never been more new car metal on the roads in Manila. And it all costs money because financing here is a joke. I left Chilli’s and walked down T.Morato Avenue and turned into Timog Avenue, part of the South Triangle area of Quezon City. The place is wall to wall restaurants, coffee shops, liquor stores, aerobics gyms and anything else you want. By the time you sweat your way onto Quezon Avenue the giant KTV lounges and nite clubs fill your horizon with their ridiculous prices and lurid neon lies of love and popularity. No money here? Rubbish!

So if you don’t have real chunks of cash, then you are in the realm of the SME or small to medium enterprise, which officially lists a micro business as being worth up to P3 million, not including buildings etc!!!! Small businesses are P3-P15 million and medium sized P15-P100 million. Anything with more investment than that gets to call itself a large, or big business. If you don’t believe me, check the official DOLE figures! So unless you have US$60,000 or more in the venture, it isn’t even a “small” business! 

Getting back into Manila, my old stomping grounds, after a two year hiatus in Cebu has proven more than merely interesting. I have really gone out of my way to get back into the street vibe that oozes from this city’s pores. Everywhere you turn in Manila somebody is trying to turn a peso. Across the street from me every morning at 5.30am a young woman sets up a simple stall selling corn, sits there all day and by nightfall it still looks like she hasn’t sold a single cob.

Every second house has its obligatory sari sari store attached, the barred serving hatch the sign of a micro enterprise in the making. On the street corners, food vendors offer BBQ meat, BBQ bananas, squid balls, taho and anything else you can think of. There are ten million people in this city and it seems that at any one time five million of them are trying to sell the other five million something. Like I said, there is money in this country, it’s just a question of who has it and how much at any one time.

How You Can Get In On The Growing Dairy Industry In The Philippines!

Dairy produce is taken for granted by most of us; at least until we come to the Philippines! I remember my first trip here in the eighties, I craved a milkshake and a decent ham and cheese sandwich! You could order both from Room Service at the 1 star doss house I was staying at in Manila, but the milk was made from powder and the bread was sugar infested Filipino bread, with strange purple ham and high temperature cheese!

Nearly twenty years later the situation has changed considerably. While you can still get the same bread, ham, cheese and powdered milk, you can also buy a much wider range of quality dairy produce in just about any supermarket. Note the location is the “super” market, not the “native”, “local” or any other kind of market. Dairy products are imported, new to the diet and thus more expensive than the average item on sale at the “merchado” or local market. 

Currently, the Philippines is about only 2% self sufficient in dairy production. The National Dairy Authority is aiming at increasing that to 5% this year with an innovative program called “Palit Baka”, more about that later. Imports of milk from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Europe in various forms set the economy back nearly US$400 million in 2003. As the acceptance of dairy products grows in the A,B and even C classes, we can expect to see that figure grow.

One thing I have always found intriguing is the total absence of goat’s milk and goat’s cheeses. Given every spare plot of dirt has a ruminant or three grazing away and the market rarely has “Kambing” for sale (usually just a hind quarter, co where does the rest of the beast go?), how come nobody milks them and sells the milk or makes cheese or yoghurt?

I turned to the Asawa for guidance and she simply shrugged and said that no Filipino would buy goat’s milk or cheese. No reason, they just wouldn’t. I have learnt not to argue with her too much, especially on matters like this. Still, it seems pretty strange to me, especially when there are some great goat’s milk cheeses to be had and surely fresh goat’s milk is better than nothing at all in the calcium stakes?

But back to the baka, or cows. The NDA website is full of fascinating information and really should be visited. These people are making a very definite effort to improve the health and diet of the average Filipino. They are determined to bring fresh milk and dairy produce within the grasp of just about everybody.

The Palit Baka program basically has farmers borrowing cows and keeping them for a period of a few years. (They can also buy selected animals and at P70,000 each, it might be worth investigating if your in-laws have a few spare plots of grassy land around their house). During this time the breeding program the NDA sponsors is monitored and new cross breeds are developed that can survive the tropical climate. All milk produced that is not consumed by the farmer is sold to the local dairy center and much of it goes back to the poor of the community through subsidised feeding programs for malnourished children. 

Some of the milk of course ends up in the supermarkets and here in Cebu I can buy fresh milk for about the same as “fresh milk”, ie; UHT long life milk. My Asawa calls the UHT (ultra heat treated) milk “fresh milk” as opposed to powdered milk. Growing up in the province they never had (and her parents still never have) UHT “fresh milk”. Powdered milk was the best they could afford and that wasn’t as often as it should have been. Real fresh milk is a novelty and yet slowly she is getting more used to having it around. I find that you really need to finish the fresh milk off in a day or two, whereas back in Australia, even at the height of summer, fresh milk would last three or four days if refrigerated. Even using the same refrigeration practices, local fresh milk turns a little sour within 48 hours of opening.

If you see a bottle of Cebu Fresh Milk in the dairy department of your Gaisano, SM, Robinson’s, Fooda or Rustan’s supermarket, buy it! Help this fledgling industry get off the ground and help improve the diet of the average Filipino. The more real fresh milk that is produced and sold, the more chance there is that dairy products will become more affordable and more available to everybody in this country.

With over 20 years hands-on experience in the Philippines, Perry Gamsby is considered an authority on the facts of expatriate life in this fascinating archipelago.  As well as having a Filipina wife, four children and the requisite extended Filipino family, Perry is a teacher of Filipino Martial Arts and a former travel editor of the country’s leading map and travel atlas publisher. Five years ago he created Streetwise Philippines Inc. publishing eBook guides to the Philippines for expat readers.

His first book and to date, still the best seller, is “Philippine Dreams” (also sold in some markets as “StreetWise Philippines”). This comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of Filipinas, the Philippines and his own decision to move to the Philippines and pursue his dream of living in a tropical paradise strikes a chord with all who read it.  Written in an entertaining yet informative style, the eBook explores life and living in the Philippines in a special way: “This is what happens, this is why it happens, this is what you as an expat can do to understand what happens.” You can read more about Philippines Dreams at http://www.philippine-dreams.com/ 

“Philippine Dreams” created a demand for more information, especially about the four most important topics of the matrix:  meeting a Filipina, marrying and migrating a Filipina, putting a roof over your head if you decided to live in the Philippines and finding ways to pay for all of this!  The results were “Filipina 101-How To Meet The Filipina of Your Dreams” (co-written with his Filipina wife, Amelita) and “Filipina 202 – How To Marry And Migrate Your Dream Filipina”. These valuable guides dismiss the misinformation and stereotyping of the Filipina on the many online dating/matchmaking sites and provide a balanced and informative guide to men looking for Filipina wives.   You can read more about these guides at  http://www.filipina101.com and http://www.filipina202.com  

Perry then released “The Philippines Property Primer – The StreetWise Guide to Buying, Renting or Leasing Property”.  This is a ‘first read’ real estate guide for anyone contemplating buying, renting or leasing property in the Philippines.  Over the years, as well as buying, leasing and renting several properties himself in the Philippines, Perry has observed many people lose large amounts of money in property here; most of the time because they are not dealing with legitimate sellers or they have not protected their investment by taking the simple precautions listed in the eBook.  The Philippines Property Primer has all of the basic information you need to assist you in making a more informed decision.  You can read more about The Philippines Property Primer at http://www.philippinespropertyprimer.com/   

THE LATEST RELEASE FROM STREETWISE PHILIPPINES

Although the topic of how to make a living in the Philippines was covered in brief in “Philippine Dreams”, the response from readers was so insistent that a new, updated and more in depth guide on how to support yourself and your family in the Philippines has been released.  “MAKING A LIVING IN THE PHILIPPINES – The StreetWise Guide To Business, Employment and Investing”, will tell you what you need to know to operate a small business, get a job or invest in a tightly regulated, highly competitive and immensely volatile marketplace.  It has been written with the average guy in mind; the everyday guy without the big retirement income set-up or pre-arranged ‘fatcat’ expat job contract who wants to escape to the Philippines and live every day with the Filipina of his dreams but still needs to make a living! 

You can read more about “Making A Living In The Philippines” at http://www.makingalivinginthephilippines.com/  or check out all the Streetwise Philippines publications at http://www.streetwisephilippines.com/  The eBook, contains a wealth of information otherwise impossible to glean without having been there, done that.  In the safety of your own home you can learn first hand what is required to survive in a third world economy and be better equipped to decide if you should risk selling up and making that life changing move!

This E-Book will explain to you everything you need to know to start up a small business, get a job or invest in the Philippines!