GMA okays RP exit from Cairns Group

President Arroyo approved yesterday the withdrawal of the Philippines from the Cairns Group. Instead, she said the Philippines will link up with "like-minded" developing countries to form another lobby group at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Discussing the issue in her regular Monday radio program, President Arroyo said the Cairns Group, an international lobby group of advanced and developing agricultural countries, failed to support the Philippines in its effort to gain tariff-free entry for its canned tuna products in Europe, a privilege that is enjoyed by African and Caribbean countries.

The Cairns Group is a coalition of 18 agricultural exporting countries led by Australia. It is so-called because it initially met in Cairns, Australia.

The group was formed to offset the strong US and European agricultural grip on international markets.

The President had earlier publicly expressed her "wholehearted" support for the recommendation of Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II for the Philippines to sever its alliance with the Cairns Group.

"I think, in fact, we should not have been part of the Cairns Group because there are developed countries and developing countries in the Cairns Group which are our opponents in certain issues at the WTO," President Arroyo pointed out.

"So there appears now a new grouping being formed. These developing agricultural countries like us which call for this WTO in September last year, the board of directors appointed a six-man management committee led by then PSE chairman Felipe Yap to take over the operations of the exchange while in the process of selecting Garcia‘s replacement.

Garcia was subsequently replaced by former Finance Secretary Ernest Leung who assumed office last January.

Bautista said a third option will be to appoint eight new non-brokers by the SEC itself, taking the job from the PSE‘s nomination and elections committee (Nomelec) which was also cited in Garcia’s petition for its alleged bias. Garcia was among the early contenders for a non-broker post at the PSE but he contended that his candidacy was arbitrarily revoked by the Nomelec.

Garcia had also asked the court to order the exchange to hold another poll wherein this time, the broker-members will cast their votes for the eight non-broker candidates in the board.