THE local jewelry industry has asked the government to start negotiating with Washington for the retention of the duty-free privilege given to Philippine jewelry exports under the US Generalized System of Preference (GSP).

Mario Jose E. Jiao, vice president of the Bulacan Chamber of Commerce, and president of the jewelers group based in the province, said the GSP coverage of Philippine jewelry is set to expire at the end of the year and would be slapped with a 5-percent duty afterward if the country is not retained on the list.

Jiao said jewelers have fears that with the presidential election in the US, Washington may not have enough time to entertain Philippine petitions if the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will wait toward the end of the year to act on it.

Jiao said the DTI should at least get a commitment from the US government that Philippine jewelry exports would be given a provisional extension of duty-free privilege, while Washington is in the transition phase for its top officials.

The industry, Jiao said, will further lose its competitiveness if the GSP coverage of the Philippines is not extended.

“We will lose our market share to India and Thailand, which are 50- percent more cost-efficient than us,” he said.

The US accounts for about 95 percent of the local industry’s $200-million annual exports.

At this time, Jiao said the industry is already suffering from lack of support for the jewelry makers to become globally competitive not just in cost but also in designs and staff training.

This, he added, has caused the number of small-scale jewelry makers in Bulacan to shrink to less than 1,000 from a high of over 10,000 during the late 1990s.

The industry, he said, is also unable to compete with important jewelry in the local market.

Before, the industry was selling 90 percent of its production to the domestic market, with the remaining sold abroad. This has reversed since, he said.

FARMERS’ groups are asking the government to impose a total ban on the conversion of all irrigated and irrigable lands to residential, commercial and industrial purposes.

DAVAO CITY—About 1.2 million hectares of land are still awaiting acquisition for distribution to 1 million farmers nationwide, many of them owned by corporations and powerful politically influential families, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said.

THE local jewelry industry has asked the government to start negotiating with Washington for the retention of the duty-free privilege given to Philippine jewelry exports under the US Generalized System of Preference (GSP).

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Key officials and private-sector players in the field of information and communications technology (ICT) in the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga) have recently agreed to heighten promotion of the use of wireless technology as an innovative step in enhancing BIMP-Eaga’s relevance in the global market during the 3rd BIMP-Eaga Telecommunications Meeting held in Brunei.

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This was the question posed by militant groups in the fishery and agriculture sector following reports that only 5 million of the close to 34 million workers, or 15 percent of the country’s labor force, will benefit from President Arroyo’s promised wage increase.

WITH the privatization of the Masinloc power plant, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said the government will become more assured that its fiscal measures to help Filipinos cope with high commodity prices will be properly financed.