28 April, Thimphu: The Exploratory Market Survey Report on Bhutanese Agricultural Commodities was launched on 28th April 2023 jointly by the Hon’ble Minister, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and Chief Representative, JICA Bhutan Office. The launch was also attended by the Hon’ble Secretary, MoAL, Heads of the Departments of MoAL and MoICE, CEOs of different SoEs engaged in agricultural production, processing and marketing, representatives of various government and private agencies.
During the opening remarks, the Hon’ble Minister, MoAL thanked JICA, Bhutan Office for supporting the Exploratory Market Survey. He further stressed on having such a comprehensive market survey report to guide the ministry in understanding the actual situation of supply chains, potential Bhutanese agricultural products and potential partner companies in the export market destinations.
The Chief Representative further reiterated the need of such a comprehensive market survey report as well as the need of all parties to collaborate together to penetrate the market, which will help Bhutan position herself in export market destinations. He stressed that JICA, Bhutan is happy to collaborate in helping the ministry explore and develop export markets. He also assured the ministry of further collaboration to boost Bhutanese export of agricultural commodities.
The exploratory market survey was undertaken during the months of January and February 2023 with the engagement of Business Engineers’ Asia based in Singapore for Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand and Institute of Learning Solutions, Bhutan for Indian and Bangladeshi markets.
As a follow up of exploratory market research, trail shipments of some Bhutanese agricultural commodities such as organic broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, rainbow trout, turmeric, products from BAIL and CSI have already started and are being put up for sale in the Singapore market. The comprehensive report will help the ministry, particularly DAMC in strategizing the export – from selection of commodities, markets and partners; creating awareness of the selected Bhutanese products in the potential markets; establishing linkages between exporters and importers, etc and the report will also help the technical Departments like Department of Livestock and Department of Agriculture, State owned Enterprises like BLDC, FMCL, FCBL and BAIL and the Private sectors to plan their production based on the market demand and potential.
