PCCI prods Senate to ratify RCEP

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s largest business organization is calling on the Senate to immediately give its concurrence to the ratification of the Philippines’ membership in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.

“The business community hopes that the Senate will immediately concur the ratification of RCEP. We definitely don’t want to be left behind in this area. This is something that we need to take advantage of to help in our much-needed economic growth and recovery,” Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) president George Barcelon said in a statement yesterday.

He said non-ratification or delayed participation in the RCEP would mean opportunity loss for exporters and would cause disruption to economic growth momentum.

RCEP was signed in November last year by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations such as the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as trade partners Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

The deal, which creates the world’s largest free trade area, took effect last Jan.1.

It covers several areas of cooperation and aims to liberalize trade by eliminating 90 percent of tariffs within member countries.

Barcelon said the RCEP is expected to provide opportunity for greater market access for Philippine exports and economic growth.

“We certainly want to take advantage of these opportunities and not miss any of them, so hope that our legislators will hear our calls and ratify RCEP,” he said.

He said the PCCI and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) have been partners in organizing doing business forums and consultations on RCEP.

Earlier, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the DTI is hopeful of having the Senate’s concurrence of the RCEP within the first two or three weeks of this month.

He said further delay may lead to losing investment and trade opportunities.

“Investors will lose confidence in us if we are not part of RCEP. Our market access, export markets, trade partners, we will not be able to maximize these if we are not part of this deal. We will not benefit from lowering of tariffs and investors would no longer come here,” he said.