Roxas assures Senate RP is ready for trade liberalization

Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II assured the Senate yesterday that the Philippines is already prepared to meet the challenges of zero to five percent tariffs posed by trade liberalization.

Roxas told the subcomittee on finance headed by Sen. Robert Jaworski that there has been robust growth in Philippine exports since the DTI started diversifying the country’s geographic market, to fill up the slack in the traditional markets like the United States and Japan.

He said that the major Philippine export growth areas were Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Korea, the Netherlands and Taiwan.

"Continued growth in the second half of 2002 is expected based on positive trends in exports and increased consumer demand for appliances, cars and electricity. Services will remain robust based on the strength of telecom-related services and banking," Roxas added.

He identified small and medium enterprises as the engine that is propelling Philippine industry. He explained that SMEs constitute 99.6 percent of total firms and employ 69.9 percent of labor force.

"SMEs also contribute 33 percent of value to the economy," he stressed.

He said that inflation from January to October averaged only 3.2 percent, "well below the full-year target of 4.5 to 5.5 percent."

He told the Senate panel that everybody must accept the fact that China would continue to get the chunk of foreign direct investments to developing economies of Asia and the Pacific.

During the same hearing, Director General Lilia de Lima of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority said that most of the foreign investors already in the country are expanding their operations.

She said that while companies have closed down, it is not true that they did so to transfer their operations to China.

She reported that there are now 1,000 companies in economic zones. She also said that sensitive parts of airplanes for Airbuses and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were made in the Philippines.

"Filipino engineers are now designing automotive parts at the Cebu Economic Zone, and these parts are being executed by German and Japanese investors. Slazenger tennis balls are being manufactured in Bataan," De Lima added.