RP mulls retaliatory action vs Australia on banana issue

The Philippine government could take retaliatory measures against Australia for reversing its earlier decision to lift the ban on imports of bananas from the Philippines.

"We are reviewing to what extent we should retaliate against Australia. We’ve been very patient and accommodating in asking for more trade reciprocity but obviously there is intent to again delay our bid to have our products enter the Australian market," Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. said.

Lorenzo said the government could try to convince importing entities to limit their imports from Australia. These include imports of cattle and dairy products.

The Philippines buys 90 percent of its cattle requirements and also buys a huge chunk of dairy products from Australia.

In recent years, Australia consented to undertaking an import risk analysis (IRA) for bananas and pineapples when then Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara threatened to suspend cattle imports from Australia.

While government is mulling a tit-for-tat squeeze to pressure Australia to finally allow imports of bananas from the Philippines, Lorenzo said he has ordered a Geneva-bound negotiating team to relentlessly pursue at the World Trade Organization (WTO) the country’s case against Australia.

"It appears that what Australia did to us is another delaying tactic. It may be a technical oversight but we see it as a political maneuver. They are playing their game, they are the referees and they have been changing their rules all the time. How can we expect Australia to be trusted in the area of trade if they behave this way?" asked Lorenzo.

"Now we have more grounds to pursue our case started at the dispute settlement panel at the WTO," Lorenzo said.

The Philippines last year, asked the WTO to create a dispute settlement panel that will resolve the two countries’ trade row.

Lorenzo dispatched during the weekend a task force led by DA Assistant Secretary Segfredo Serrano and his core group to attend the resumption of negotiations in agriculture at the WTO in Geneva. The world trade body’s committee on agriculture has set a special session this week to attempt to revive the stalled talks, targeting an agreement on core outstanding issues by the mid-year meeting of the WTO General Council.

Lorenzo said it is unthinkable for Biosecurity Australia (BA) to have committed such a grievous error in deciding if bananas from the Philippines are safe to enter the $100-million market.

"There is obviously a flaw in their system for them to say that they have to go back to their findings," Lorenzo said.

The DA head said BA bowed to pressure from the Australian Banana Growers Council that widely criticized and opposed its position to lift the ban on imports of Philippine bananas.

"The BA is supposed to be an objective body, but obviously their objectivity is being compromised by politics," Lorenzo said.

BA said last month it endorsed the lifting of restrictions on Philippine banana imports in its revised import risk analysis (IRA) report. Last week however, it said it made a mistake in the electronic spreadsheet used in estimating the risk for the banana IRA.