Panama pitches fruit juice, chili sauce, coffee at the Food Show

The Taipei International Food Show serves as a perfect platform for promoting a variety of Panama’s products to the people of Taiwan, said an official of Embassy of the Republic of Panama in Taiwan Tuesday at the opening day of 2009 TaipeiFood, one of the most representative food exhibitions in Asia.
“For the past five years, Panama has been bringing some of its products into Taiwan,” said Zabrinna A. Gonzalez, attache of the Embassy of the Republic of Panama in Taiwan.

“The food fair has helped a lot to increase commerce between the two countries. Some of the products we have brought to Taiwan in these years include meat, shrimp, coffee, Noni fruit juice, and some hot sauces,” she said.

“This year we have brought new products such as barbecue sauces, different flavors of hot sauces, and more traditional foods from Panama including a kind of soup in Panama called Sancocho, and liquors, trying to bring new tastes to the people of Taiwan,” said Gonzalez during an interview with Taiwan News at the Panama Booth in 2009 TaipeiFood.

Gonzalez added that the success of importing foods from Panama into Taiwan can be attributed to the signing of a Free Trade Agreement between Panama and Taiwan in 2004 that further strengthens both commercial and investment ties between the two sides.
According to statistics released by Panama, bilateral commerce between Panama and Taiwan during the first six months of 2008 reached US$46.77 million, a 71% increase compared with the same period a year earlier, she noted.

Panama is one of the five diplomatic allies that have signed FTAs with Taiwan who joined this year’s Taipei International Food Show June 23 to 26 at the Taipei World Trade Center Nankang Exhibition Hall.
Twenty companies from Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras displayed their most representative food products in 14 booths at the show.

Products expected to be exhibited at the Panama Booth include coffee, dried papaya, hot chili sauces and noni products, to be offered by six Panamanian companies – Alisina, S.A., Cafe Sitton, S.A., Frutas Tropicales Anabela, S.A., H & H Products, MMI Import & Export and Productos de Mi Granja, S.A..
Introducing these Panama’s products to Taiwan is Walter Castro, Director of International Fairs under Panama’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce, who flew to Taiwan to join the annual food fair. Castro said that the use of chili sauces is very common in his country, and one will see three kinds of hot sauces in the Panama booth.

Castro also recommended his country’s specialty dried pineapple snack, good-for-the-health noni fruit, as well as award-winning Rum and coffee, inviting locals to drop by Panama’s booth for a taste of the Central American country’s unique food products and culture