The Philippines will open up its market for more products, including agriculture, to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the planned comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) between the two countries.
The Philippines and UAE will conduct their third round of negotiations middle of this month on CEPA, focusing on market access.
At the public consultation conducted by the Tariff Commission last week, Export marketing Bureau director Bianca Sykimte presented the Philippine offer, where the country will bring down to zero as early as 2025, tariffs on certain products based on certain criteria: products that are not locally produced or are locally produced but not in sufficient quantity; products whose tariffs will be eliminated in other existing free trade agreements (FTAs) and; the Philippine level of imports from the world.
Sykimte said the Philippines will request for market access for products that are currently exported to the UAE Including those already in high demand or those with potential for growth; largely imported by the UAE that the Philippines can potentially supply and; products are exported by the Philippines to the world.
Sykimte said the Philippine request will align with the zero tariffs by 2025 as with other FTAs. It will also target products whose Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) rate are below 7 percent.
Sykimte said for its offer, the Philippines will prioritize products that the Philippines does not produce locally or those with insufficient local supply to meet domestic demand.
The Philippines currently exports the following to the UAE: fresh or dried pineapples, bananas, preparations of sauces and prepared sauces, savory food snacks, food preparations, tobacco, prepared or preserved tunas, skipjack and Atlantic bonito.
For industrial goods, the Philippines exports ingots, storage units, personal deodorants and antiperspirants, spectacle lenses, parts of machineries and parts of electrical equipment, and men’s garments.
Sykimte said products that the Philippines can potentially supply to the UAE are coffee, cheese, carrots, tomatoes, and capsicum for agriculture and; polyethylene, other coal, petroleum bitumen, mixed xylene isomers, polycarbonates, toluene, and benzene for industrial goods.
She also identified cathodes, aluminum oxide, dyed fabrics and air conditioning machines as products that the UAE buys from other countries but can be supplied by the Philippines.
For its offer, the Philippines divided the products into basket 1 or whose tariffs are already at zero and; basket 2 or those whose tariffs were pegged at 7 percent in 2023 but will go down to zero by 2025 under other FTAs.
For basket 1, offers include milk and cream products, whet, wheat and muslin, buckwheat, mullet and canary seeds for agriculture and other petrol oils, semi-finished products of iron or non-alloy steel, electric generating sets and rotary converters.
For basket 2, the Philippine offer includes frozen fish excising fillet; milk and cream products, yogurt, butter, malt, other sugars, food preparations for agri and; urea, other parts of aircraft and dredgers for industrial goods.
Other offers include frozen meat and edible offal, rice, palm oil, glassware for kitchen, automotive diesel fuel, among others.
