WTO-backed trade initiative woos Philippine companies

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon—A global initiative supported by the World Trade Organization (WTO) urges Philippine companies to help boost trade and investment in least developed countries (LDCs), highlighting the country’s growing role in Asia.

The Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) is a Geneva-based global partnership that supports LDCs in strengthening trade and investment by engaging governments, development organizations and the private sector.

The EIF — backed by 51 countries, 26 donors and eight partner agencies, including the WTO — helps LDCs in driving development and poverty reduction through trade.

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“You, the Philippines, you have already an advanced economy. You are doing very well on agribusiness, on services, even on tourism,” EIF Executive Director Diallo Aissatou said on the sidelines of the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14).

Aissatou said the EIF could connect Philippine businesses with counterparts in LDCs through investment forums and buyer-seller meetings. These meetings would enable them to explore investment opportunities, establish trade linkages and expand their participation in the global value chain, she said.

“For instance, we want to see how the Filipino private sector can be interested in some of the value chains that are currently getting a good traction in Cambodia, in Laos PDR, in Nepal or in Bhutan,” she said.

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Phase 3

The EIF launched the third phase of this initiative at a side event during MC14, which ranged from standalone projects to multiyear country programming to bolster LDCs’ trade and investment capabilities.

“It is designed to help LDCs better integrate into the global trading system while addressing structural vulnerabilities and seizing new opportunities in areas such as digital trade, services, green value chains and regional integration,” the WTO said in a statement.

The EIF Phase 3 seeks to raise at least $200 million to support the initiatives intended for LDCs. So far, it has secured new contribution pledges from Germany (1.5 million Central African CFA franc), Liechtenstein (50,000 CHF), Norway (CHF 3.2 million), Switzerland (CHF 2.5 million) and the United States (CHF 5.3 million).

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‘Defining moment’

“This third phase of the EIF comes at a defining moment for the LDCs and recently graduated countries. Familiar structural vulnerabilities are being compounded by a disrupted global trading system, power politics, debt pressures, climate change and global economic uncertainty,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.

“At the same time, the current global context offers some important opportunities for LDCs to use trade to drive growth, development and job creation,” Okonjo-Iweala added.

According to the EIF, LDCs comprise 13 percent of the world’s population, although these countries account for only 1 percent of global exports. /dda