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WITH the
negotiations for new World Trade Organization (WTO)
multilateral trade modalities expected to reach the
homestretch starting next week in Geneva, the
Philippines has also begun attuning its stand vis-à-vis
its top trading partners, the US and Japan, even if it
would mean abandoning its linkages with developing
nations and giving up some trade concessions.
The
nongovernment group Fair Trade Alliance (FTA),
meanwhile, stepped up in parallel its opposition to the
government intention, and called on it instead to
strengthen its ties with other developing nations so
they could much better collectively look after their
common positions.
Trade
Senior Undersecretary Tomas Aquino said in response, “At
the end of the day, the Philippines’ ultimate goal is
still to consider its own trade profile and see how the
country could protect its interest in its major
markets.”
“It’s
reality check now for us. Their [US and Japan] suppliers
and buyers will only want to deal with their
counterparts whose governments are friendly to theirs,”
said Aquino at the sidelines of the inauguration of the
Philippines-Korea Internet Plaza at the Philippine Trade
Training Center on Roxas Boulevard.
As the
countries start to align their positions, Aquino said it
would be in the interest of the Philippines not to be
seen by its trading partners as a country that is
blocking the negotiations.
He said
the WTO leadership headed by Pascal Lamy has already
noted there is convergence, and “this convergence will
be become the agreed modalities” once captured in the
meeting.
So, to
protect the country’s market interests in its top
trading partners, Aquino said they would start giving
more weight to the stand of the US and Japan rather than
those of the Nama 11 and G-33, the lobby blocs of the
developing countries.
He said
the US is already aware of the industries and tariff
lines the Philippines needs to protect and how deep the
tariffs cut the country would be able to bear. “It’s
known by everybody that they [US] want lower tariffs. It
is important that we convey to them that what they think
is low is what we can bear so we will just have minimal
adjustments.”
He
added, “we have to be friendly but also be firm with
them so that the market opening they would seek would
not be too demanding that it will only impoverish us.”
However,
FTA convenor Rene Ofreneo described this view of Aquino
as “very narrow” for not having considered the
Philippines’s own development perspective. “What about
your domestic industries? The government also needs to
protect them.”
He said
even the US is standing pat on not giving up more
concessions on their trade-distorting subsidies, and
this is because it is looking after its own domestic
industries.
He said
the Philippines appeared to have surrendered without a
shot being fired when Aquino said the country would need
to start being more amicable to the US, Japan and other
top Philippine export markets other than its lobby bloc
affiliates in the Nama 11 and G-33.
If the
government were simply to follow Aquino’s reasoning,
Ofreneo warned, many local industries will be wiped out
from the flood of imported products into the country due
to the liberalization championed by the US and other
developed nations.
Aquino
is a member of the Philippine trade negotiating team for
the Geneva July 21 meeting of the WTO. |
