It’s a split: PH, SoKor still can’t agree on banana, exports deal

Talks for a new free trade deal with South Korea hit a snag anew, with parties failing to come to terms on the issue of market access.

Negotiations are expected to drag further until a deal is made by the first quarter of 2021—at the earliest.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) did not expound on the specifics, but trade negotiator Allan Gepty said the strongest interest on the part of the Philippines was to get better market access for Philippine tropical products, including banana.

South Korea is one of the most important export markets for Philippine bananas. But to enter the market, Philippine exporters have to pay a tariff rate of 30 percent, which local officials deemed lopsided since competitors would eventually be able to export tariff-free bananas to South Korea in a few years.

Gepty, assistant secretary at the DTI’s Industry Development and Trade Policy Group, told reporters the free trade agreement with South Korea is almost finished, except for two remaining issues—economic and technical cooperation and market access.

While finishing the chapter on economic and technical cooperation would be easy since it was just a “matter of fine tuning provisions,” Gepty, a former commissioner at the Tariff Commission, could not say the same for the issue of market access.

“We have yet to receive, I would say, a reasonable offer from Korea because we have requests that they still are not giving [in]. So hopefully, [this would be done in] the first quarter of next year at the latest,” he told reporters.

“Unless [and] until our respective offers [become] acceptable, of course that’s when there will be a convergence. On their part, too, they would say they are still not really happy with our offers. That is expected,” he said.

The two economies first announced in April 2019 they would be pursuing a deal. They originally targeted to finish negotiations in November that same year. INQ