The Philippines will push its interests at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 13th ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi on February 26 to 29.
For one, the Philippines is working with other members of the WTO to resolve the impasse in the WTO Appellate Body (AB) or come up with a functioning dispute settlement system by 2024.
The Appellate Body, which has 7 members, has been unable to review pending trade disputes since 2019 because of vacancies.
The Philippines has always been advocating for the urgent need to restore the 2-tier dispute settlement system which incorporates an appeals mechanism and unblock the impasse in the selection process of the Appellate Body.
The Philippines itself has been caught on the stalemate on its cigarette tax dispute with Thailand. Representatives to the WTO of both countries in 2022 agreed to resolve the matter bilaterally.
The Philippines will also champion reforms enhancing the WTO’s functions, notification, and transparency mechanism, as well as achieve meaningful outcomes on agriculture negotiation to achieve a permanent solution for public stockholding for food security purposes, and an effective special safeguard mechanism (SSM) for developing countries, among others.
The Philippines sees the importance of the second wave of fisheries subsidies negotiations while it has yet to ratify the f the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement, which sets the rules to curb harmful subsidies in fisheries and prevent depletion of world’s fish stocks.
“Through these, the country targets to establish a balanced approach on the disciplines on overcapacity and overfishing including an effective and appropriate special and differential treatment for developing and least-developed members,” the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said in a statement.
The Philippines expects significant progress and outcomes by the end of the discussions on electronic commerce, investment facilitation for development, trade and environment, as well as the integration of micro-small and medium enterprises in the global value chain.
DTI Secretary Alfredo Pascual leads the Philippine delegation to the MC, the highest decision-making body of the WTO attended by trade ministers and senior officials from the organization’s 164 members. The last MC was held in June 2022 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Before the conference, the DTI convened briefing sessions in preparation for the MC13. On 08 February 2024, a joint briefing for Congress was conducted, which was followed by a briefing for non-government organizations and civil society organizations on February 15 attended by representatives from SENTRO, Federation of Free Farmers, Federation of Free Workers, Nestle Philippines, and Agap Partylist, among others.
