Government urged to include fishery expert in WTO panel

The local commercial fisheries sector is urging the government to form a stronger team to represent the industry in the ongoing negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on non-market agricultural access (NAMA).

Augusto Natividad, president of Frabelle-Frescomar Corp. and vice-chairman of the Philippine Tuna Industry Council (PTIC), said the fishing sector is increasingly growing restive over what they perceive as the weakness of the existing NAMA negotiators to the WTO.

"The industry is dissatisfied with the representation in the WTO because there is not a single expert on fisheries that can appreciate and properly articulate our concerns," said Natividad in an interview at the 2nd regular session of the Scientific Committee of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission held in Makati City yesterday.

He noted a number of critical issues that the current WTO negotiators might have overlooked.

These include the 24-percent tariff imposed by the European Union (EU) on Philippine tuna plus other non-tariff barriers imposed by other developed countries on other fisheries products.

"There are issues that need to be immediately addressed such as the high tariff imposed by the EU on tuna products as well as other non-tariff measures imposed by other countries," he said.

Tuna producers are concerned over the 24-percent EU duty since this makes them uncompetitive against imports coming from African-Caribbean and Pacific (APC) countries which enter the EU at zero duty.

Local tuna processors are also at odds with the European Commission which has set a maximum lead residue level of 0.2 parts per million for tuna, down from 0.5 ppm.

The fishery development organization, Tambuyog Development Center, has also long been asking the Department of Agriculture to press DTI to name at least one fishery expert to the WTO negotiating team.

Natividad said the lack of insight on the fisheries sector will be disastrous for both commercial and municipal fishers, and should make the DA cautious about pushing through with plans to downgrade the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) to a mere staff bureau.

"We need to ensure that there is an agency that will focus on addressing issues on the fisheries industry especially in relation to our commitments in international trade organizations such as the WTO," he said.

BFAR is currently at odds with the DA over such a plans, saying this would wipe out significant gains made by the fisheries sector, especially aquaculture.

BFAR Director Malcolm Sarmiento said the agency is strongly opposed to the proposal and asked that any action on BFAR be deferred until 2008.

Under the proposal, BFAR will continue to exist as a bureau in the region, but the BFAR regional director will be under the direct supervision of the regional executive director and it will be served by the regional fisheries unit’s administrative and financial services.

Also, BFAR’s regulatory services will be transferred to the proposed Philippine Agri-Fisheries Inspection Agency.

Sarmiento argued that the proposal is inconsistent with the intent of EO 366 which specified that only non-performing agencies should be phased our or abolished.