RP won’t agree to further tariff cuts in next month’s WTO talks

The Philippines’s position in the forthcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Hong Kong next month remains consistent with its earlier position in the Cancun meeting in 2003, according to Senior Trade Undersecretary Thomas Aquino.

Specifically, on the non-agricultural market access (NAMA) issue, Aquino stressed, the Philippines is still against any further moves to reduce tariffs.

The Philippine position in 2003 had, and continues to be, not to trade away its tariffs.

Philippine negotiators have repeatedly said that the country needs to adjust from the headlong rush to liberalize.

The Philippines has already unilaterally brought down its tariff rates much faster than in its ASEAN neighbors and through various early harvest schemes.

During the failed Cancun WTO meeting, members are being asked to undertake a new round of tariff cuts.

In the resumption of he WTO-Doha round talks in Hong Kong next month, the same move for tariff reduction is expected to be pushed by the United States and the European Union even as the two big economic powerhouse refuse to make major concession on the removal of their trade distorting farm subsidies.

The problem for the Philippines is that it had much earlier lowered its tariff rates compared to other countries and is now putting on the brakes especially since domestic industries have already borne the brunt of the earlier tariff cuts.

Trade and Industry Secretary Peter B. Favila has assured he would continue to resist new tariff cuts.

Favila had already announced the Philippines’ position during the last ASEAN Economic Ministers’ meeting in Vientiane, Laos.

On the agriculture issues, the Philippines is also against several of the provisions that would further open up the Philippine market to foreign agriculture imports.

The revisions to agriculture market access are actually for the benefit of the US which is trying to gain access to the European Union market.

On the so-called Singapore Ministerial Conference (SMC), the issues involved are liberalization policies in the area of investment, government procurement, transparency and trade facilitation of the four issues, the most critical, at least for the Philippines, is investment.

Liberalization of investment policies would essentially mean that sovereign countries would no longer be able to discriminate or prioritize the entry of investments.

This means that any foreign investor that wants to come in would no longer have to go through the Board of Investments which currently screen visitors and prioritizes which investment it wants to allow as part of the Philippine government’s development plan.

The Philippine position is that the country must be allowed to determine its own domestic policy.