At the recent meeting of the officials of the Asean Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF), member-countries rallied behind the Philippine government’s position to bring up the issue in the Cotonou Agreement, successor to the Lome Convention. The Lome Convention was named after a town in France, where regular annual meetings of tuna producers and processors worldwide were held.
Philippine Agriculture Assistant Secretary Segfredo Serrano said AMAF agreed on several courses of action as requested by the Philippines.
For one, the ministers directed by Asean secretariat to communicate to the US, EU and Canada, expressing AMAF’s concerns regarding the huge disparity in tariffs between Asean canned tuna producers and their Western competitors.
AMAF also directed the Asean secretariat to raise this issue at the next Asean-EU consultations while urging member-countries to express the same concerns with the respective member-governments’ appropriate ministries and agencies, to the EU at the Asean Brussels and Geneva committees and at bilateral levels.
Serrano said the Asean secretariat was also instructed to draft a statement for AMAF, directing the Asean Geneva committee, in coordination with the appropriate ministries in the respective member-countries, to continue raising the issue before the WTO-Sanitary and Pythosanitary Committee until Australia adjusts its import risk analysis (IRA) policies and procedures with the WTO agreement.
The Philippine government wants to sustain the momentum it earned earlier this year when it won a hard-fought battle that saw Australia finally agreeing to allow the entry of fresh mangoes from Guimaras Island and to begin an IRA on pineapples and bananas.
An IRA, also known as a pest risk analysis, determines the likelihood of importing farm commodities by assessing the state of pests and diseases affecting such products. To many in the agriculture department, the IRA is a form of a non-tariff barrier.
Australia finally relented after Agriculture Secretary Edgardo J. Angara retaliated against the Australian agriculture department by issuing a policy that reduces the entry of live cattle from Australia by 20 percent. This was however later, trimmed to just five percent. The Philippines is Australia’s largest market for live feeder stock cattle.