Philippines: Businessmen prepare for free trade accords
Manila Standard | 4 Jan 2014
Businessmen prepare for free trade accords
By Othel V. Campos
The largest group of businessmen is preparing for new trade agreements that will enable the country to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry vice chairman Donald Dee said the group would push for more intense information campaign to educate small and medium-scale businesses and determine how they could benefit from these trade agreements.
“We agreed that, as a group, we will have to go and join the effort to open up the market. We are the only national organization that speaks for the SMEs,” he said.
TPP is a comprehensive agreement among Asia-Pacific countries, affecting trade in goods, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement and competition policy.
It called for a 90 percent reduction of all tariffs among member countries by Jan. 1, 2006 and reduction of all trade tariffs to zero by the year 2015.
Meanwhile, RCEP is a free trade agreement for the 10 member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The regional agreement covers over three billion people, with a combined gross domestic product of about $17 trillion, and accounts for about 40 percent of the world trade.
Dee said small and medium businesses still had negative impression about the opening up of the Philippine market to a more aggressive world trade.
“You will notice that SMEs are not reacting to these trade agreements and if they react they do so very negatively. The logic that they were saying is that allowing foreign manufacturers that are more competitive will only crush local manufacturers,” he said.
He said there seemed to be no effort coming from the government to allow SMEs to level up and compete with foreign companies.
The chamber will present its advocacy agenda for SMEs in the first quarter, specifying clearly the program for SMEs, to increase their awareness and fortify their competitiveness.
“This will be our focus in the next two years. And we will be actively participating in the trade agreements and partnerships including that of the European Union. We heard that the DTI (Trade Department) is expanding their team of negotiators. Maybe this time ample focus will be given to SMEs,” Dee said.
PCCI president Miguel Varela said despite opportunities presented by free trade agreements, SMEs were not able to maximize the potentials of these agreements.
A study by the Asian Development Bank showed that only about 20 percent local firms utilise these agreements.
