Duty-Free access to US for agriculture, garments pushed

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will push for duty-free access of garments, textiles, wrist watches and agriculture products to the US as preliminary talks for a potential bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) would likely start by the end of the month.

“The US welcomes the Philippines’ interest in a bilateral FTA and both sides agreed to discuss the matter further through the US-Philippines Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA),” Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo said, quoting a message from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). 

The Philippines’ bid to secure an FTA with the world’s largest economy got a boost during US President Donald Trump’s recent visit in Manila. He welcomed the suggestion and said “they will consider exploratory talks on FTA.” 

“We will go to the US by the end of the month for a mini-TIFA and we expect to start discussions, initially regarding the timeline, by then. We had inception or preliminary report (for the FTA) completed already so we’re ready to discuss this,” Rodolfo said.

He said the preliminary discussions for the FTA usually take about a year, while completion of the deal will take two to four years.

He noted, however, that a bilateral agreement is easier to forge compared to a multilateral pact because “it is more targeted and focused and discussions will not be dragged by interest from other parties.”    

“What’s good here is they are already looking at us for an FTA, unlike before when they are not,” he said.

According to Rodolfo, duty-free access of garments and textiles will be among the country’s priority request for the proposed FTA.

“If you will look at it, 75 percent of our products already enter the US duty free. The only remaining products that do not are garments and textiles, wrist watches, carrageenan and seaweeds, and also agriculture products,” he said.