Exporters face trade financing crunch–DTI

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said exporters have been suffering from a trade-financing crunch amid the current global economic crisis.

In a statement, the DTI said it has been receiving reports that banks have become very reluctant to lend to exporters.

The agency said its delegation to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Economic Ministers’ Retreat, headed by Trade Senior Undersecretary Thomas Aquino, will raise the matter as a priority concern.

Trade ministers of Asean member-countries have been convening beginning Monday until today in Siem Reap, Cambodia, primarily to discuss intra-Asean economic integration as well as the region’s global integration through free trade agreements, the DTI said.

The agency said a research conducted by the G-20 shows that global trade has declined partly due to a sharp fall in trade financing.

The DTI said the Asean meet would be an occasion for the Philippines to exchange notes with its neighbors to better understand each others’ domestic procedures in implementing tariff commitments, especially as the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement obliges signatories to submit explicit comprehensive tariff schedules this year.

The Philippine trade delegation will also help work on Singapore’s proposal that the Asean Secretariat and senior economic officials list down which export sectors have remained resilient and which industries have been hit badly, so that lenders will understand the current state of the market and client base.

The DTI said the Philippines would as well push for streamlining the formats and frequency of Asean economic managers’ conferences, in line with the recently approved Asean Charter. –Ben Arnold O. de Vera, Reporter, Manila Times