US firms urge Washington to cultivate Asia-Pacific links
BusinessWorld | Wednesday, April 15, 2009 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
US firms urge Washington to cultivate Asia-Pacific links
BY JESSICA ANNE D. HERMOSA, Reporter
AMERICAN BUSINESS leaders in the Asia Pacific have called on Washington to bolster trade and investment links with the region as a means to strengthen the US economy.
The Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers (APCAC) particularly urged the Obama administration to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade area and pursue the streamlining of customs procedures and financial policies among the region’s economies, the group said in a compilation of policy recommendations made last month at the annual APCAC Spring Conference in Singapore.
The Philippines, in turn, should look into joining the TPP free trade area as this may be easier to forge than a bilateral agreement with the United States, the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham) said.
Local trade experts, however, prefer the Philippines engage with the US through routes other than the TPP.
"APCAC believes that the US government’s Asian trade policy can best strengthen the American economy ... with trade and investment initiatives oriented towards partnership with the region," the document, made available by the APCAC Secretariat to BusinessWorld, states.
"The acceleration of regional integration to create larger markets is one of the best ways to stimulate growth in Asia and the US. The US [will gain] from Asian prosperity."
To this end Washington should pursue negotiations to join and expand the TPP free trade area, which is currently limited to Brunei, Chile, Singapore, and New Zealand.
"Coupled with greater ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) integration, TPP could be the foundation of a broad Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific," the APCAC said.
The US announced in September last year its interest to join the TPP, which was formed in 2006. The US Trade Representative Office tagged this negotiation as among the Washington’s priorities in its 2009 Trade Policy Agenda report, noting that Asia Pacific accounts for almost half of all global trade.
A trade deal with the Philippines was not mentioned.
In keeping with its calls for trade liberalization, the APCAC also recommended that the US government reject "self-defeating Buy America provisions ... that prevent foreign companies from competing for US projects" in its stimulus packages.
The Philippines, meanwhile, ought to consider joining the TPP free trade area as well, said Robert M. Sears, executive director of the Philippine-based American chamber.
"We think the Asia Pacific region is the region of the future. The US administration in the past, we think, has neglected Asia," Mr. Sears said.
"The feeling is ... the Obama administration will be less inclined to do bilateral trade agreements, but be more into multilateral agreements. I would think that if the Philippines would want to pursue [a free trade deal with the US], they could jump onto the bandwagon," Mr. Sears said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Trade Senior Undersecretary Thomas G. Aquino, however, rejected the recommendation.
"The current ... member economies [of the TPP] are not the major trading partners of the Philippines. Linking the Philippines up with the US via this arrangement is going around the bush," Mr. Aquino said in a text message.
Improving the design, quality and pricing of Philippines exports would be a better tack to ensure access to the US market, he said.
Concurring was Rene E. Ofreneo, executive director of the civil advocacy group Fair Trade Alliance, who said the Philippines’ agricultural sector may lose out in a free trade deal that includes Chile.
"Chile has a lot of farm products they can dump," Mr. Ofreneo said in Filipino in a telephone interview.
And bilateral and regional trade pacts, he warned, ask for more aggressive tariff cuts than multilateral deals.
The APCAC, meanwhile, went on to urge Washington to pursue bilateral investment treaties with countries in the region and to throw its support behind the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s "single window" which aims to streamline customs handling of traded goods.
The US must also work with the region’s initiatives to prop up and harmonize the regulation of financial systems, the APCAC added.
Washington would also do well to continue encouraging the region’s leaders to uphold intellectual property rights.
For Mr. Sears, harmonizing the region’s rules for the financial sector intellectual property rights protection were among the urgent recommendations for the Philippines along with regional free trade.
The US is the Philippines top export market, accounting for $8.204 billion or 16.7% of the $49.023-billion in total export sales last year, official data show.
