Choke Points and Opportunities in the Supply Chain of ASEAN Agricultural Products: A Philippine Country Study

This study identifies and examines "choke points" in the supply chain of two selected commodity groups that are of interest to the region of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations: crude coconut oil (which belongs to the HS15 group), and fish and crustacean, mollusks, and other aquatic invertebrates (which belong to the HS03 group). For crude coconut oil, no major choke points were identified from mill site to export stages, but cost and delay factors were found at the farm-to-mill stage, such as low farm productivity, poor postharvest practices (leading to low quality of copra), and inefficiencies in marketing to the mill.For fisheries, several choke points were identified, such as poor quality of domestic roads and low capacity of vehicles, high cost and poor sevice of interisland shipping, inadequate conditions in some ports and weak link in the cold chain, poor compliance with sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulations, and inadequate number of certified laboratories. The study recommends specific types of road investments, a competition policy in domestic shipping (both for crude coconut oil and fisheries), industry restructuring in the case of coconut, and compliance with SPS measures in the case of fisheries.