FTA asks WTO negotiators to be careful in accepting concessions

The Fair Trade Alliance (FTA) has asked government negotiators for the World Trade Organization (WTO) to be careful in accepting economic concessions especially with the looming fuel and food crisis.

“The Philippines is facing rising food and fuel prices right now. In the light of these unfortunate events, accepting new and further economic liberalization without the necessary preparedness and trade flexibilities for the vulnerable sectors is tantamount to economic and political suicide,” the FTA said in a statement.

According to the FTA, the country must maintain its alliance with other developing nations and continue pushing for Special Products (SPs) and Special Safeguard Mechanisms (SSMs).

The multisectoral group explained that there should be flexibility clauses that will allow developing countries to have as many sensitive products be declared as SPs and to have the facility to avail of protection through the SSMs.

“The food and rice crises show the correctness of the logic behind SP and SSM. We should therefore push for these in the WTO in the context of the overarching goal of the Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT) principle,” the FTA said.

In addition to this, the FTA advised that the country should now focus its efforts in boosting our own domestic agricultural production than become perennially dependent on imports.

Meanwhile, the FTA said that simulations prepared by both the Tariff Commission and the Board of Investments (BOI) show that for the tariff cuts, targeting a coefficient of 50 will maximize the current policy space of NAMA tariff lines whose average bound rates is pegged at 23 percent.

NAMA refers to all products not covered by the Agreement on Agriculture. In other words, in practice, it includes manufacturing products, fuels and mining products, fish and fish products, and forestry products. They are sometimes referred to as industrial products or manufactured goods.

Likewise, the FTA said that a mark up of 50 or a minimum of 35 should be adopted in order to provide flexibilities for the treatment of unbound tariff lines, considered to be sensitive and instrumental to economic development.

For services, the FTA said  the issues still are how to insure that the principle of universal service, how to provide effective competition against big foreign and domestic monopoly service providers and how to preserve public control over strategic sectors of the economy such as the land market, environmental services, water and energy distribution, operation of public utilities.