LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Local residents and visitors will have easier access to quality products of the different provinces in the region with the expected opening of the Cordillera Administrative Region Association of State Universities and Colleges (CARASUC) marketing center by the first week of March.
The CARASUC marketing center will be incorporated with the existing State-run Benguet State University (BSU) marketing center in order to widely promote not only the quality products of Benguet but also the different products of other provinces in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
Dr. Nieves A. Dacyon, president of the Apayao State College (ASC) and the incumbent CARASUC president, said the opening of the CARASUC marketing center will be done in time for the conduct of the Coffee Congress slated March 1-3, 2016 hosted by the BSU and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).
“The CARASUC marketing center will serve as a convergence area for the various products of the different provinces that are being promoted by the State-run higher education institutions in the region. We have to actively work for the promotion of our own products for purposes of gaining access to bigger markets,” Dacyon stressed.
She said the overall objective of the CARASCU marketing center will be to popularize Cordillera products as major souvenir items for visitors so that they will also help in promoting such products in their respective places in order to increase the markets of such handicrafts, food products among others that are produced in the different parts of the region.
According to her, each of the state universities and colleges, Abra State Institute of Science and Technology (ASIST), Apayao State College, Benguet State University, Kalinga State University, Ifugao State University and Mountain Province State Polytechnic College, will also be required to establish the CARASUC marketing center in their respective schools to serve as a one-stop shop for the products of the different provinces.
The CARASUC marketing center was supposed to be inaugurated during the first week of February in time for the scheduled Coffee Congress but the main activity was rescheduled to the first week of March prompting the organizers to reset the inauguration of the said center.
She explained the existence of the CARASUC marketing center in the different state universities and colleges would inspire local producers of the different products to increase their production in order to be distributed to the different centers for greater access by the buying public, especially tourists visiting the beautiful places in the different parts of the region.
The CARAUC official underscored the importance of convergence among the different higher education institutions for the aggressive promotion of available quality products in order for the public to appreciate the existence of international calibre products coming from the different parts of the region.
She appealed to local producers to coordinate with the higher education institutions in their respective places in order for them to get available orders that could be circulated in the available marketing centers regionwide.
Aside from the establishment of the different marketing centers in the state universities and colleges, the CARASUC also aims to strengthen the relationship of the different higher education institutions in order to boost the image of the organization.
By Dexter A. See