Local and foreign business chambers expressed support for the Senate ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership mega free trade deal, saying the country could not afford to be left further behind.
The Philippines is the only member-state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which has yet to ratify the agreement.
Employers Confederation of the Philippines president Sergio Ortiz-Luis said that “among our ASEAN neighbors, we are at the tail-end.”
He said the ratification by the Senate, which votes on Tuesday, “will bring us competitive with others, at least to a certain degree.”
“We can’t afford not to have trade agreements and, at the same time, to not be part of it,” he said.
“Everyone has joined already,” he said.
Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry president George Barcelon said in a letter to Senate President Miguel Zubiri RCEP “will play a key role in sustaining the Philippines growth trajectory, provide unparalleled opportunities for Philippine businesses and prime the country for further economic growth and development.”
“We cannot afford to miss out on the RCEP. Non-joining will disadvantage our exports in the world’ fastest growing area. Furthermore, it is detrimental to our goal to bring in foreign investments as investors would rather look at an RCEP signatory country to obtain preferential treatments among the RCEP countries,” Barcelon said.
The American Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines Inc. issued a similar statement strongly supporting RCEP ratification.
“The Philippines cannot afford to leave itself out of the bloc since being a member will harness economic benefits that will hasten economic recovery from the scars, higher debt and economic damages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” it said.
“The chamber believes that the Philippines’ participation in RCEP will boost the country’s competitiveness and will reflect a strong, rules-based economy. This will encourage more foreign direct investments in the country which ultimately translates into more jobs for Filipinos,” AmCham said in a statement.
“We strongly urge the honorable members of the Philippine Senate to immediately ratify RCEP,” the chamber said, noting that the agreement is already in force in Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Ortiz-Luis said doubts about the country’s competitiveness to enter a free trade deal are misplaced. “We have lessons in the past. We enter into negotiations without involving the private sector. And by the time we are allowed to take part, there are already promised safeguards, especially in the agriculture sector, that have disappeared, so there are bad lessons,” he said.
“Fortunately, in the case of RCEP, this is widely debated on and for a long time, so we are already familiar. And if there are vacuums, these have been filled up, there are safeguards already,” he said.
He said that on the perceived fears about RCEP’s disadvantageous effects to the agricultural sector, these have been addressed repeatedly “so the risks are very minimal, if ever.”
“We have waited long enough for this [ratification], and we are very late already. All the others have overtaken us,” Ortiz-Luis said.
The RCEP is a free trade agreement among the ten member states of ASEAN and its five FTA partners including Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea. It covers several areas of cooperation and aims to liberalize trade by eliminating 90 percent of tariffs within the participating economies, while others will be gradually reduced within a 20-year period.
Based on World Bank’s data, the agreement is expected to benefit 2.3 billion people or 30 percent of the world’s population.