A trade official is pushing for the extension of the European Union’s (EU) trade preferences program while pursuing a possible free trade agreement (FTA) with the bloc for boosting bilateral trade relations.
Angelo Salvador Benedictos, director of the DTI-Bureau of International Trade Relations, said they want the renewal of the EU Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) as “it benefits a lot of industries, a lot of areas in the Philippines”.
The current EU GSP+ scheme, which allows for the duty-free entry of 6,274 Philippine products into Europe, will expire by the end of 2023, according to a news release on Saturday.
Benedictos said there were already two rounds of Philippines-EU FTA negotiations.
According to the BITR-Bilateral Relations Division, the Philippine strategic objectives in engaging the EU in an FTA include securing additional duty-free market access beyond those covered under the GSP+ scheme and on a permanent basis; providing a conducive framework for attracting greater investments from the EU; and being at par with other Asean member states who are aggressively pursuing FTAs with the EU.
Kristiyana Kalcheva, policy officer for bilateral relations in trade and sustainable development and the EU GSP in the European Commission’s directorate-general for trade, said as the current GSP regulation will expire on Dec. 31, 2023, the EC made a proposal on September 22 last year for a new regulation, which the European Parliament and the Council are currently discussing.
Kalcheva said one important aspect is the Commission’s proposal for GSP+ beneficiaries to reapply for the scheme.
Meanwhile, the country is urged anew to increase the utilization of the EU GSP+ utilization.
Luc Veron, EU ambassador and head of the EU delegation to the Philippines, said the country’s utilization rate of EU GSP+ preferences reached 75 percent in 2020.
Veron said agriculture goods, including processed foods and fishery products and manufactured goods, highly benefit from GSP+.
In a separate interview, Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., president of the Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (Philexport) said that at least 500 of their members are actively exporting to the European Union.(PNA)
