Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez is opposing the plan to create a trade representative office—similar to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR)—seeing an inefficient duplication in effort and resources between the proposed agency and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
“I haven’t seen the proposal, but offhand, I don’t see the need to change it, because there will just be redundancy in work, extra bureaucracy and an extra budget. There won’t be quick synergies, and [the work] will not be efficient if it’s not under the DTI,” Lopez said in a text message.
According to a BusinessMirror report on Monday, the government is revisiting the idea to create a Philippine Trade Representative Office (PTRO), specifically to “coordinate the Philippine positions in trade agreements, and negotiate bilateral, regional and multilateral arrangements.”
Currently, the DTI is tasked to formulate domestic policies governing trade and industrial development, as well as negotiate the country’s position in trade agreements.
The suggestion to create the office, found in the government’s latest Philippine Development Plan, is seen to be a solution for the emerging trend of inward-looking policies and protectionism in trade confronting the Philippines and its trade partners.
Moreover, the restructuring was put forward as a means to jumpstart perceived “delayed” reforms in the current setup.
“Reforms are yet to be fully implemented, including streamlining of export and import procedures and other trade-facilitation measures. Opportunities from existing bilateral and regional trade agreements were not fully utilized,” the PDP read.
But Lopez said there is no guarantee that these goals would be met with the creation of the PTRO.
“If there’s a separate office, we won’t be able to craft relevant and balanced position in the long run because it will no longer have the current setup that the DTI has now, which has direct interaction with stakeholders,” Lopez told the BusinessMirror.
“Basically, it has to connect with the DTI’s overall trade direction and policies, which is also synced with the industrialization direction. The current setup is already aligned with those, and promotes synergies,” the Cabinet official added.
In 2014 former Trade Secretary Gregory L. Domingo expressed the same opposition to the creation of a PTRO. In his letter to the House of Representatives, Domingo said the PTRO will overstep the functions and jurisdiction of the department through the Bureau of International Trade Relations, which has already developed expertise in trade negotiations and in forging trade agreements with other countries.
Moreover, according to the DTI, in creating the PTRO, the authority to rule on trade matters will be separated from the industry aspect, which, in turn, will cause inefficiency in both areas.
According to a position paper of the DTI, trade and industry policies are naturally and inextricably linked, such that industry policy should underpin trade policy and vice versa. Segregating the functions causes ineffectiveness in both areas, thereby, hindering their full potential to serve overall national interest.