SGV hosts workshop on agri-value chain financing and risks
SGV’s Financial Services Risk Management (FSRM) Group hosted a public workshop entitled Agri-Value Chain Financing, Agricultural Commodities and Weather Derivatives/Catastrophe Bonds last 14 October at the WSDC training room 1.
With the agricultural sector consistently lagging behind when it comes to development and the ASEAN Economic Community fast approaching, the workshop helped reinforce the understanding of value chains in agriculture, with the sampling of the sugar industry, and its potential as a market to be optimized. It also served as a venue for the regulators/policy-makers, financial institutions and the participants in the agricultural value chain to bridge information asymmetry and to enable possible ventures to support the agricultural sector.
Participants from regulators/policy-makers, banks, food manufacturers, schools, insurance companies and microfinance institutions attended the workshop, which was spearheaded by SGV FSRM partner Ian Lauron. He discussed the ASEAN Economic Community, global value chains and agricultural value chain financing, and credit assessment.
FSRM manager Reymond Antipolo presented a case study to simplify the impact on cost and volume of production of sugar as accessibility to finance becomes available not only to the sugar millers, but also to the farmers. Associate Martin Lon talked about how a commodity exchange operates while manager Alister Benedict Rodriguez tackled extreme events in relation to the agricultural industry and gave an overview of weather derivatives and catastrophe bonds.
The team also included FSRM managers Christian Edmund Chua and Hazel Grace Apa, senior associates Cherren Lataza, John Paul Dela Cruz and Ruben Simon Jr., and associates Meriam Lorraine Gaviola, Mark Daniel Dionisio-See, Mitchelle Collin Valero and Lyca Regina Antonio. Advisory FMA Carol Aquino and EA Jolivette Batalon also helped in organizing the event.