After a year and two months of implementation, the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) has ushered an increase in the bilateral trade between Japan and the Philippines by 218 percent, records show.
Based on the 2009 year-end data provided by Japan’s Information and Culture Center Director Tomoko Dodo, the trade between Tokyo and Manila involving cuttlefish and squid skyrocketed by 1,685 percent, followed by women’s skirts of cotton (72 percent), coconuts (36 percent), women’s coats of cotton containing fur skin (35 percent), mackerel (35 percent), shrimps and prawns (29 percent), outer soles of footwear of rubber or plastics (25 percent), bananas (24 percent) and bananas, mangoes (24 percent).
The cited economic agreement removed tariffs on specific products such as coconuts, women’s coats, and women’s skirts, while tariff rates on the rest went down compared to the time before JPEPA was forged.
According to the cited data, moreover, the amount of Philippine exports to Japan has been increasing since 2008, the year JPEPA was signed. Tokyo accounted for 15.7 percent or $7.68 billion of Manila’s $49-billion total exports. The said figure was second only to the United States’ $8.20 billion or 16.7-percent share in the country’s total exports.
Meanwhile, Japanese imports in the Philippines in 2008 amounted to $6.60 billion or 11.6 percent, again slightly behind United States’ $7.21 billion or 12.7 percent of the total imports to Manila.
Prior to the implementation of the JPEPA, however, Japanese businessmen were deemed to have been very interested in investing in the Philippines.
As of 2007, Japan’s foreign investment to the Philippines amounted to P121.6 million or 17.8 percent, slightly behind Washington’s P126 million or 18.5 percent.
It was Japan, however, that got the lion’s share of foreign investments under the Philippine Economic Zone Authority with P99 million or 38.6 percent. US registered P81 million for 31 percent. –Llanesca T. Panti, Manila Times
March –
IT’S WOMEN’S MONTH!
“Respect and support women
every day of the year/s!”
Invoke Article 33 of the ILO Constitution
against the military junta in Myanmar
to carry out the recommendations of the 2021 ILO Commission of Inquiry
against serious violations of protocols of
Forced Labour and Freedom of Association.
Accept the National Unity Government (NUG)
of Myanmar. Reject Military!
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Monthly Observances:
Women’s Role in History Month
Weekly Observances:
Week 1: Environmental Week;
Women’s Week
Week 3: Philippine Industry and “
Made-in-the-Philippines Products Week
Last Week: Protection and Gender-Fair Treatment
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Daily Observances:
March 8: Women’s Rights and
International Peace Day;
National Women’s Day
March 4: Employee Appreciation Day
March 15: World Consumer Rights Day
March 18: Global Recycling Day
March 21: International Day for the Elimination
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March 23: International Day for the Right to the Truth
Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations
and for the Dignity of Victims
March 25: International Day of Remembrance of the
Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
March 27: Earth Hour
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