JPEPA seen to boost RP-Japan trade

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