DA revives plan to file WTO case vs Australia

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is reviving plans to elevate its fruit trade tussle with Australia to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Agriculture Undersecretary Segfredo Serrano Jr. said Agriculture Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban has given his office the go-signal to re-assess the trade row with Australia involving the latter‚s continued refusal to allow the Philippines to export fresh bananas to the Australian market.

"We have to review the case especially in the wake of the cyclone that hit Australia in recent weeks which devastated their banana plantations," said Serrano.

The Philippine government is hoping that Australia would finally relent to shipments of bananas from the Philippines as its local banana industry struggles to recover from the damage brought about by last month’s strong cyclone.

Serrano said the government is now in consultations with lawyers of the Advocacy Center on WTO Law (ACWL) which was set up years ago through a trust fund created by developed countries to help developing countries thresh out their unfair trade complaints before the WTO.

He explained that while in talks with ACWL, the review team will make its recommendations on the issue and endorse these to the agriculture secretary who in turn will refer it to the Cabinet for the final decision.

"After we make our recommendations, all we need is the approval of the Cabinet to pursue our case against Australia and ask the WTO to convene its dispute settlement board to resolve our case," said Serrano.

The Australian government has repeatedly junked attempts by Philippine banana producers to penetrate the Australian market.

Biosecurity Australia (BA), the Australian government agency that assesses the risk of disease from imported farm products reversed two years ago its import risk analysis (IRA) report that should have finally allowed the imports of bananas from the Philippines following the strong opposition by the Australian Banana Growers Council (ABGC).

The BA said it will issue later this year an IRA on bananas.

Despite the damage brought by cyclone Larry last month that destroyed 90 percent of Australian banana plantations, the ABGC is expected to exert pressure on the BA to continue its "no Philippine bananas" policy.