Bilateral talks between Jakarta and Manila last month ended in a stalemate with the Indonesian market remaining closed to Philippine farm goods, including horticulture and tobacco products, according to the Department of Agriculture (DA).
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said results of negotiations were “not very good,” with Indonesia maintaining its restrictive import policies over Philippine farm exports.
“It looks like they were not really [willing] to open up their markets. Our negotiators came home downhearted but we are not giving up,” Piñol told reporters in a recent interview.
With this, Piñol said the DA has become lukewarm to open further the local market to Indonesian farm products.
He added that the DA is now looking for measures to balance the bilateral agricultural trade between the Philippines and Indonesia, which is heavily tilted in favor of Jakarta.
“It is one of the reasons that dampened our interest to open further the market for Indonesia. It’s not a tit for tat but we might [impose stricter import measures],” he said.
“It should not be a one-way affair. We are neighbors in the first place and we are also blood relatives,” he added.
Among the measures being mulled over by the DA is the possible imposition of quantitative restriction on palm-oil imports, which has been a subject of an investigation by the agency over alleged dumping, Piñol said.
Furthermore, the government may not anymore push through with the lifting of the special safeguard duty (SSG) on imports of coffee products, he added.
The lifting of the SSG on coffee imports was a sign of goodwill prior to the agricultural trade talks between the Philippines and Indonesia.
Indonesia questioned the Philippines’s imposition of SSG during a September meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Committee on Agriculture.
Indonesia, the source of certain popular instant coffee brands, noted that the imposition of additional duties on coffee products greatly affects them.
“Having substantial interests in supplying these agriculture product categories, Indonesia would like to express its deep regret on the imposition of this measure by the Philippines,” Jakarta said
He said the restrictions imposed by Jakarta caused the “drastic” decline in the volume and value of shipments of agricultural products, such as shallots and tobacco.
Indonesia exports about $1 billion worth of agricultural products to the Philippines, mainly palm oil, while the Philippines ships around only $50 million worth of farm products to Jakarta, according to Piñol.