The city is the center of trading activities in the province. It serves as the intra-distributor of almost all commodities being traded to other municipalities in the entire province. Masbate’s main products are copra and marine resources such as fish. These are traded to Manila, Lucena, Legazpi, and Cebu cities. Other traded products such as dried fish, crabs, prawn, bangus, livestock, and rice are coming from the neighboring municipalities of Milagros, Baleno, Balud, Mandaon, Aroroy, Mobo, Uson, Dimasalang, Palanas, Placer, Pio. V. Corpus and Cawayan.

The city has existing trading relation with Manila, Cebu, Lucena, Iligan, Roxas, Iloilo, Tacloban, Ormoc, Legaspi, Naga, Daet and Sorsogon. These are the main destinations of the products traded by the city and those of the other municipalities passing through the city’s port. Copra, cattle, and aquamarine products are also shipped-out to Metro Manila, Cebu, Batangas and Lucena, etc. Shrimps, crabs and prawns are shipped to Japan, mud crabs to Taiwan, headless squid to USA and Japan, crab meat to USA and scallops to Europe.

The city is importing products mainly from Manila, Lucena, Cebu and Legaspi. These are mostly rice, bakery raw materials, transport vehicles and appliances, farm inputs, construction materials and basic commodities. These are also traded by the city to other municipalities in the whole province.