More than 600,000 farmers and workers employed by the local sugar industry are facing the risk of losing their jobs, when cheaper sugar imports enter the local market with the advent of Asean economic integration next year.
Labor Secretary Rosalinda D. Baldoz said the government is raising the productivity and readiness of around 62,000 farmers and 600,000 workers in the sugar industry, saying that Asean integration will allow the influx of imported sugar that will lower the mill-site price of locally produced sugar.
Citing concerns raised by the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), a government agency overseeing the country’s sugar industry, the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) allows lower tariff on imported sugar to up to 5 percent resulting to greater competition for locally produced sugar.
The CEPT will be fully implemented under the Asean Free Trade Area by 2015.
“To keep pace with the competition, the government aims to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the sugar industry. This can be done not only through an increase in production, but also through the enhancement of productivity and empowerment of sugarcane field workers, small sugarcane farmers, mill workers and other workers in the sugar industry,” said Baldoz in a statement released over the weekend.
Baldoz said the labor department designed the Human Resource Development (HRD) Plan to increase the productivity and readiness of workers in the sugar industry in time for the Asean integration.
She said the plan aims to create a more productive and competitive sugar industry work force and enable them to meet forthcoming challenges.
Asean groups the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam, and Myanmar. The 10 member-countries seek to establish a free-trade zone to boost trade and investments in the region.
The labor chief said that part of the HRD plan include engaging small planters and sugar workers in policy- and decision-making; development and training of sugar workers through capacity building, skills training.
The program also seeks to promote proper work attitudes, as well as promotion and protection of livelihood and employment and risk and hazards management.
Baldoz said the program also taps the support of private sector, academe, sugar producers and non-governmental organizations to help the sugar industry cope with the impact of Asean Free Trade Agreement implementation also next year.
The country’s sugar industry workers and farmers are mostly in ten major sugar-producing regions, among which are Negros Occidental, Bukidnon, Batangas, Negros Oriental, Iloilo, Capiz, Tarlac, North Cotabato, Davao del Sur and Cebu.