The Philippines and Canada will launch this year their joint economic committee, a platform for stronger trade and investment cooperation, according to Guy Boileau, counsellor and senior trade commissioner of the Embassy of Canada to the Philippines.
In a forum hosted by the Canadian Chamber Commerce of the Philippines, Boileau described the countries’ trade relationship as being modest with merchandise and services transactions valued a C$3 billion.
Pre-pandemic, merchandise trade between the two grew close to 20 percent over a three-year period.
“One of the key areas of focus is for establishment of a joint economic committee in 2022. We are currently in discussions with the Filipino authorities to establish what effectively will be the first bilateral commercial consultation mechanism between Canada and the Philippines where we’ll have the platform necessary to talk about a range of commercial issues, opportunities, areas of enhanced collaboration, and also areas where we might need to work a little bit more closely to overcome some trade irritants. We’re hoping that that’s going to be launched in 2022,” Boileau said.
The Philippines, he said, plays a role in Canada’s trade diversification strategy.
“We’re looking at defining and diversifying our markets. The region and in particular the Philippines, play an important role in offering Canadian companies new opportunities when looking beyond our traditional markets, and notably the United States. But trade diversification is not only about markets, it’s about the sectors, looking at new sectors and non- traditional sectors,” Boileau said.
He cited electronic commerce and digital trade as well as cultural industries.
“There’s a lot of opportunities both in trading and investment that we’d like to tap into a little bit more over the coming years. What’s important to note is that the exports so the Philippines enjoys the trade surplus with with Canada. We really have a complementary relationship,” Boileau said.
Boileau sees the Philippines benefitting from a Canada-Asean free trade agreement.
“There’s been a range of economic study that stated that specifically for the Philippines, the Canada-Asean free trade agreement would provide enhanced markets access and opportunities for Filipino companies,” he added.
He cited prospects in the export manufactured goods, plastics, chemicals, rubber, among others.
