TUNA industry players in General Santos City are upbeat over the impact to the area’s tuna exports of the recent decision of the European Union (EU) to include the Philippines in its Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) list.
Richie Rivera, executive vice president of the RD Group of Companies in General Santos City, said the EU’s decision would boost the area’s tuna industry, especially the processed and canned-tuna exports.
EU’s GSP+ mainly grants zero duty or tariff to over 6,000 eligible exports from the Philippines to its member-states.
But Rivera said the GSP+ status only covered processed and canned-tuna products caught by 100-percent Philippine-registered vessels.
“If foreign-caught, the GSP+ won’t apply,” Rivera explained.
RD Tuna Ventures, which is controlled by the RD Group, has shifted its fishing operations in Papua New Guinea where it also owns a tuna- canning plant.
Nevertheless, Rivera said they support the trade scheme.
The city, which is home to six of the country’s tuna canneries, is dubbed the “Tuna Capital of the Philippines.”
The industry generates annual export receipts of around $350 million and directly employs about 20,000 workers.
In the first half of the year, the country’s tuna exports, which includes fresh, frozen, preserved or preserved in airtight containers, netted around $125.65 million in total receipts.
Such figure was only based from the shipments during the period to the EU. The other top tuna export markets are the United States, Japan and the Middle East.
Francisco Buencamino, executive director of the Tuna Canners Association of the Philippines said, canned tuna exports to Europe in 2012 reached 3,202,659 cases, or 42.5 percent, of the country’s export volume of 7,538,093 cases.
The 2012 value of canned-tuna exports to Europe reached $123.29 million, or 44.8 percent, of the total $275.29 million in export receipts of the country.
Industry sources said the inclusion of the Philippines in the EU GSP+ will mean at least additional $15 million, or P660 million, in revenues for Philippine tuna exporters.