Bill to revive Phl textile industry gains support in US Congress

WASHINGTON – Support for Save Our Industries act among US legislators is growing and the measure, which seeks to allow Philippine-made apparel using US fabrics to enter the United States duty free, could be taken up by the US Congress in the coming months, said Philippine ambassador to Washington Jose Cuisia.

In a message to the Filipino-American community, Cuisia said he had been informed the SAVE Act could be taken up as part of a trade package in the current 112th Congress, as soon as legislation was concluded on pending US free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

“It is crucial that Filipino-Americans be heard by the US Congress in the coming months to ensure SAVE’s passage this year,” he said.

Cuisia said this would be the first bilateral trade arrangement between the two countries in nearly four decades.

For the United States, SAVE Act would expand US export of fabrics to the Philippines, from $11 million to up to $500 million annually within 3-5 years of implementation, and save or create some 3,000 jobs in the US textile industry.

“For the Philippines, it would restore hundreds of thousands of apparel manufacturing jobs, and over $1 billion of Philippine apparel exports to the US lost since the lifting of the US apparel import quotas and the resulting dominance of China in the US market,” Cuisia added.

Supporters of the SAVE Act include Democratic senators Harry Reid, Daniel Akakas and Daniel Inouye and Republican Sen. Roy Blunt and Representatives Charles Rangel and Peter King, both of New York and Ohio Republican Steve Austria, the first, first-generation Filipino to be elected to the United States Congress.

No less than President Aquino himself during a visit to New York last year to attend the UN General Assembly asked all Filipinos in the United States to actively support the SAVE Act to bail out the dying textile industry in the Philippines. –Jose Katigbak, Star Washington Bureau (The Philippine Star)