PH seen keeping EU trade perk despite human rights row

Even amid growing concerns of human rights violations under the Duterte administration, Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez said he was confident that the country would keep its conditional trade perks under the GSP+ scheme following a discussion with a top official of the EU Commission.

Lopez told reporters on the sidelines of an expo launch that he had recently gone to EU in order to “give more facts rather than the sensationalized news of international media,” a bid to convince the EU government to keep the Generalized System of Preference Plus (GSP+) privilege of the Philippines.

The GSP+ allows zero tariff on more than 6,000 Philippine products that are exported to the European Union. This perk, which only a few countries enjoy and the Philippines being the only Asean nation to benefit from it, is given on condition that the beneficiary state adheres to certain international conventions, including one concerning human rights.

Since being granted with the status in December 2014, the utilization rate of the perk has been increasing on a yearly basis, albeit only in a small scale. According to data from DTI, utilization rate in 2015 has been 68.3 percent, which rose to 70.87 percent last year.

Moreover, according to Eurostat data, the statistical office of the EU bloc, the Philippines exported 1.7 billion euros worth of products under the GSP+ scheme last year, a nearly a 10-percent increase from 2015.

Lopez said he had met with EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malström, adding that the meeting ended on a positive note as they recognized the mutual benefits of the GSP+.

This comes as the EU is preparing for its review of the country’s compliance to the GSP+, with the latest check scheduled in the last quarter of the year.

“I’m confident that we have impressed upon them that the GSP+ benefits both parties. The products are cheap when they enter their market, their manufacturers enjoy cheaper inputs and EU investors in the Philippines could also export and have market access to US under its own GSP,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.

“We went there because there’s this review in the last quarter [of the year] from October to December. There’s a review to propose recommendations to the EU Parliament for the EU GSP+. They (the EU Parliament) want to be informed and we provided information on the benefits of the GSP+ to us,” he said.

The EU Parliament issued a joint motion for a resolution in March that said, among others, that the EU Commission should “use all available instruments to persuade the Philippines to put an end to extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign,” including the possible removal of the GSP+ if there were no substantial improvements.

Lopez said that the visit to EU was both an initiative on the part of the Philippines in anticipation of the last-quarter review and an invitation issued by EU lawmakers who went to the country to visit detained Sen. Leila de Lima. —ROY STEPHEN C. CANIVEL