EU Parliamentarians push RP FTA
Manila Bulletin | February 15, 2013
EU Parliamentarians push RP FTA
By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat
Visiting EU Parliamentarians expect the bilateral free trade agreement between the Philippines and EU will be completed in one and a half years as the legislators urged for further opening of the domestic economy to shore up the country’s foreign direct investments and more trade.
In a press conference yesterday for the conclusion of their five-day visit, Werner Langen, chairman of the committee on economic and monetary affairs of Germany, said that FTA negotiations could in the “next months”.
While the timetable is quite uncertain, Lengen stressed the need to finalize the FTA negotiations before the current EU Parliament’s authority expires on June 2014 and the EU Commission on October 2014.
This means the bilateral FTA can be negotiated and done in one and a half years.
“There are many opportunities in services, tourism and we hope the second half of the Aquino administration we find some possibilities,” Langen said.
Robert Goebbels, vice chairman on the committee on industry, research and energy of Luxembourg, said the EU has offered an FTA deal with the Philippines but their understanding was the “Philippines is not yet ready.” Goebbels also noted that some sectors of the economy do not want any further liberalization of the economy.
He urged that both parties should negotiate the FTA now even if the EU has still to ratify the Partnership Cooperation Agreement. The ratification is taking longer because the ratification is done by the 27 national parliaments of EU and some countries are slow in their ratification process.
But he said this happened also to Singapore when they negotiated with their bilateral FTA.
Goebbels said that part of the issues that the FTA would address is the Philippine restrictions on foreign direct investments, especially the negative list where foreign investors are limited to 40 percent equity.
The EU parliamentarians noted that the Philippines share of the $7.6- billion EU FDIs to ASEAN in 2011 was only 5 percent while Vietnam, which is a lot smaller country, is ten times higher than that of the Philippines.
The Philippines should take advantage of EU, which has the biggest FDIs in the world.
In terms of trade, the balance of trade is on the Philippines with $1.1 billion out of the 9 billion euros bilateral trade in 2011.
The visiting parliamentarians, however, said they were impressed by the Aquino administration’s strong anti-corruption policy, the growth of the economy and the peace process in Mindanao. The parliamentarians also visited Cotabato where they met with officials of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. (BCM)
