MAP URGES SENATE TO RATIFY RCEP

The Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) on Tuesday called on lawmakers to immediately ratify the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, which has languished in the Senate more than a year after the previous Philippine president approved it.

The country’s largest business management group said that it “strongly urges” the upper chamber to approve the regional trade agreement, citing as well that it has been signed by other member-economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

“We have already lost ten months of ability to compete on equal footing with our Asean and Asian partners already in RCEP in attracting foreign investments as they capitalize on the shift by a number of [multinational corporations] to seek alternative locations for their manufacturing sites,” MAP said.

The RCEP is a free trade pact among all Asean member-states, as well as six of the regional bloc’s trade partners including Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

The free trade agreement provides preferential arrangeadd-on ments, including market access, in all participating countries.

MAP said the concerns raised by some critics over the RCEP’s impact on the sensitive agriculture sector were “unfounded and illusory” as government negotiators in RCEP “have repeatedly explained that sensitive agricultural products remain protected under our commitments to the agreement.”

These products include rice, swine meat, poultry meat, potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbages, sugar and carrots, according to MAP.

“Both the [Department of Trade and Industry] and the Department of Agriculture have explained that membership in the agreement opens up further export opportunities for our agricultural products, without exposing ourselves to an imagined flood of farm imports feared by opponents,” the group said.

MAP said that the delay in ratification deprives local producers of exportable products of easier market access to countries which have signed up to RCEP, saying that being a signatory brings with it improved provisions on market access and easier rules of origin.