AFTA to benefit agriculture sector, says DA

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture (DA) said the full implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA)- Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme this year will benefit the agriculture sector.

As agreed with member-partners in the ASEAN, tariffs as of Jan. 1 this year must be brought down to zero to five percent for processed and agricultural commodities traded within Southeast Asia.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary Dr. Preceles Manzo said, “AFTA can be viewed as an opportunity for increased market access of Philippine goods to its ASEAN neighbors.”

Manzo, who takes care of policy and planning, said that with the full implementation of the AFTA-CEPT scheme, “the region can now be looked at as an additional source of important raw materials and intermediate goods not locally produced but which are inputs for local industries.”

The Philippines, Manzo said, “may even be in a better position to export excess produce in the future, like yellow corn, to our ASEAN neighbors that are not yet self-sufficient in these goods.”

AFTA, which covers the Philippines and nine more countries, is envisioned in five years to become a potential market of close to 600 million people – the world’s largest market next to China and India.

“If we analyze briefly the Philippines’ level of trade in terms of the sensitive agricultural products,” Manzo said, “it is evident that the bulk of its farm imports, except for rice, come from countries outside of the ASEAN region.”

Manzo cited that almost all of the country’s live pig breeder imports over the past five years came from the United States, Australia and Europe, while most of the beef, pork and chicken meat imports were also sourced from the US, Australia, Europe, as well as from Canada, Brazil and New Zealand.

Manzo pointed out that even if Thailand and Vietnam are the Philippines’ biggest competitors in the region, there are “unique concerns that favor our domestic hog and poultry industries.”

According to Manzo, the Philippines alone is a major producer of pork meat in the region, given that “ Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia are predominantly Muslim countries and they do not produce and consume pork that much.”

“This reality should augur well for local pork, especially those produced in Mindanao, which is an area that is geographically closer to the rest of Southeast Asia and long declared free of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD),” Manzo said.

In fact, he continued, the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) has already reported shipments of canned pork-based processed products to Thailand.

An initial five-ton shipment of frozen pork slats was already set to sail for Singapore a year ago, but was eventually shelved by BAI following isolated cases of Ebola Reston virus infections in Luzon.

As one of only two ASEAN countries still free of the Avian Influenza (AI) or bird flu virus – the other one is Brunei – the local poultry should also be able to capitalize on this advantage by “looking forward to a larger market in ASEAN,” Manzo said. –Marianne V. Go (The Philippine Star)