|
POULTRY
raisers want the Philippine government to fight for
safeguards during the miniministerial meeting among
members of the World Trade Organization currently being
held in Geneva, Switzerland.
United
Broiler Raisers Association (Ubra) president Gregorio
San Diego called on Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap
and Trade Secretary Peter Favila to ensure that the
Special Products (SPs) and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM)
will not be “watered down” and disadvantage producers
from developing countries.
“We call
on our trade ministers to assert our right to designate
at least 20 percent of our agricultural tariff lines as
SPs and not the current proposal of 10 percent to 18
percent only,” said San Diego.
He added
that developing countries should be exempted from tariff
reduction, but he noted that the current text allows
only 6 percent of SPs, almost insignificant compared
with the original proposal of the Group of 33 (G-33)
countries, which was 50 percent of SPs.
Meanwhile, the SSM as a flexibility measure for
developing countries under the WTO will allow the
imposition of additional duty on applied tariffs when
the volume of imports shoots up or the prices of
imported products go down, unfairly competing with local
agricultural products.
“The
country cannot afford massive tariff cuts in agriculture
and have no other recourse but to maximize these
flexibilities. Equally important in upholding our
development interests in this round of negotiations is
to resist the efforts of developed countries to
preserve their subsidies on agriculture,” said San
Diego.
The Ubra
chief asked Philippine trade ministers to actively
engage with other developing countries and push for the
substantial reduction, if not total elimination, of the
trade-distorting subsidies of the United States, the
European Union and other developed countries.
Currently, Ubra noted that imported chicken coming from
the United States and Canada, not including smuggled
chicken, comprise 9 percent of the Philippine market. |
