RP’s tuna exports plunge 40%, may slide further

The country’s tuna exports has progressively declined by over 40 percent during the last three years and this may slide further if the Philippines is not able to get equal tariff treatment for its tuna in the United States and Europe.

This was the projection made by Francisco Buencamino Jr., spokesman of the Tuna Canners Association of the Philippines during the Fish Talk Forum of the Philippine Agricultural Journalists at the Paseo Restaurant in Quezon City yesterday. Other guests at the forum were Veronica Bartolome of the International Trade Group of the Department of Trade and Industry and engineer Augusto Natividad of Frabelle Fishing Corp., the largest fishing operator in the country.

Buencamino said the country used to export 34 percent of its canned tuna production each to Europe and the United States but this has slid to 14 percent last year because of uneven tariff regimes accorded our tuna.

The United States has an in-quota of two million cases of tuna a year. All importations within their volume are slapped a preferential duty of six percent while out-quota importations or importations in excess of the in-quota volume are slapped a duty of 12 percent.

Europe, on the other hand, extends a preferential treatment of zero tariff on tuna shipment, imported from former colonies of European countries, mainly Spain and France. Spain, however, refuses to include the Philippines in its list of former colonies, saying it ceded the Philippines to the United States. As a result, tuna imports from the Philippines are slapped a tariff of 24 percent, the same rate imposed in tuna imports from Thailand, Indonesia and the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, the US Congress is on the brink of passing a measure granting preferential (zero) tariff to Andean countries to wean them away from drugs. The Philippines, citing its fight against terrorism, is seeking similar treatment.

The Philippine lobby, conducted principally by DTI as the chief negotiator, zeroes in on the need to sustain economic activity in the South through preferential trade agreements that would ensure continued business and provide jobs in depressed areas, thereby securing the peace in Mindanao and effectively deterring its residents from harboring terrorists and other lawless elements, Bartolome said as she added that "the good relations with the Bush administration is helping the country in its negotiations for zero treatment in its tuna exports to the US."

In its negotiations with Europe, the Philippines is invoking that it had been a colony of Spain for over three centuries and should thus be afforded the same zero duty given to other colonies of Europe. But European officials are stating that the last colonizer of the Philippines was America and that it should therefore get preferential treatment from that market.

In the case of Europe, the Philippines agreed in the last meeting of the World Trade Organization in Dona, Qatar to settle the issue bilaterally. This it did, along with Thailand and Indonesia, when it negotiated three times with EU on the issue. The first meeting was held in December in Brussels, then in Manila in January and then in Bangkok last April. But all three negotations failed and the three Asian countries decided to file for mediation with WTO for the purpose of reaching an amicable settlement. Being the first mediation case filed before WTO, the director general and representatives of WTO are still working out the terms of reference for mediation.

Of the four million metric tons global tuna production yearly, the Philippines accounts for only two percent of the world purse seine catch and another 50 to 150 metric tons of specialty hand-line caught tuna (from General Santos) for the sashimi grade, according to Natividad.

Natividad said canned tuna production of the Philippines carry any of three known brands in the world market, namely Chicken of the Sea (from Thailand), Starkist of Heinz and Bumble Bee from Japan. This is because of the toll packing arrangement reached among local tuna canners and the foreign owners of this brand.

He said it would be foolhardy for the Philippines to even try to market its own brand of canned tuna in the world because these three brands are already well established in the global market. Besides, he said, "were it not for Starkist, which worked out sourcing arrangements for its raw materials in the country 15 years ago, we would not have developed our tuna industry at all," he said.