UK keen to hike trade with RP

MANILA, Philippines - British businesses are keen to increase trade with the Philippines in the next few years, particularly in financial and outsourcing services.

At the sidelines of the launch of the Philippine Learning Center for Trade and Investment Policy (PLACE), UK Ambassador to the Philippines Peter Beckingham said they also intend to import goods from the country such as clothing, baked food products, coconut oil and coconut products.

Beckingham said his country is a big exporter here of transport equipment, especially for the car sector, some retail goods and pharmaceutical products.        

Bilateral trade between the two countries is worth around $2 billion annually, with the balance in the Philippines’ favor.

Apart from increasing trade with the country, Beckingham said British firms also plan to invest in the business process outsourcing (BPO), energy and mining sectors.

He said these involve new investments and expansion plans. 

“We hope that all of those sectors can be developed in the next few years,” he noted. “British companies find this is a good country to work in.” 

The UK, one of the largest foreign investors in the Philippines, has already made major investments in the country, with concentration in power, energy, agri-business, transport, water and financial services.

But despite these, the British envoy reiterated his hope that the Philippines liberalizes more sectors to foreign ownership. 

“That’s (land ownership) an economic provision of the (Philippine) Constitution which we hope after the elections would be changed or removed,” he said. “There are also areas in governance where we would like to see more playing fields, like in some areas of taxation for example.”

Meanwhile, the PLACE, the first and premiere private sector-led trade policy and training center in Southeast Asia, is designed to train and equip private stakeholders with knowledge and information on trade policy and negotiations.  

“Through the modules that we will be supplying, we hope to be able to impart new notion that liberalization will be beneficial to the large part of the population, provided that stakeholders are supplied with adequate and objective knowledge and information for them to better understand the intricacies and solutions for the changing and challenging trade landscape,” said Donald Dee, chairman of the Universal Access to Competitiveness and Trade (UACT).   

Among the courses PLACE offers are rules of origin, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures and technical barriers to trade, trade remedies, trade in services and dispute settlement mechanism. – Philexport News and Features