RP nixes ‘early harvest’ program with China

The Philippines has decided not to participate in the early harvest program of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with China, Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II announced yesterday.

"The decision not to participate in the early harvest program with China was based on the view that such an arrangement would be disadvantageous to the Philippines," Roxas said.

"Our posture so far on early harvest is to not participate," he stressed.

The DTI chief also said "the limitation of the early harvest to Chapters 1 to 8 of the Chinese Tariff Code, meaning agriculture, presents a disadvantage."

Roxas gave his assurance, however, that the Philippines will continue to work on expanding the early harvest coverage to include industrial products, specifically those areas that are export winners.

"We will continue to negotiate, but our position at present is that it is not in our interest to participate in such an early harvest mechanism," he said.

On the other hand, the government, Roxas said, "is cognizant of the threats to our own agriculture sector arising from non-participation."

"For example, if Indonesia participates in the early harvest of coconut oil and we don’t, our exports of coconut oil to China will be threatened."

He elaborated that "with early harvest, Indonesia’s coconut oil will be entering China at a lower price than ours."

Roxas said that consultations with various agriculture industry groups show that the overall threat to general agriculture outweighs whatever potential gain from participating in such a mechanism.

He added that even without the Philippine participation, the rest of ASEAN could go ahead with the early harvest program with China.

The Philippines’ non participation would also not affect the planned Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China which is scheduled for 2010.