Agriculture Assistant Secretary for policy and planning Segfredo Serrano said "it would be more beneficial for the Philippines if China becomes a member of WTO than if it were to conclude bilateral agreements with different countries and at different terms of reference."
As a non-member of WTO, China may opt to granting countries and can not be freed to apply the same to others.
But under WTO, China would be forced to conclude a uniform set on concessions and market access agreements with the member countries, Serrano pointed out.
He said the challenge for the Philippines is being able to explore the opportunities offered by China in terms of quantity, price and quality of tropical fresh fruits exports.
More often than not, he said, the Philippines is being outpaced in the same markets by competitors from Asia like Thailand, a major producer of tropical fruits and Vietnam, an emerging supplier.
China is about to wind down its negotiations with the WTO for its accession terms and chances are its final membership would be decided during the WTO Ministerial Meeting in November in Doha, Qatar, Serrano said.
China with its 1.2 billion population is being anxiously awaited by member countries of WTO as ultimately joining their ranks.
But WTO members are also apprehensive about China‘s entry into the grouping because of its notoriety in copying industrial products from most WTO member countries and selling the same fake products at dumped prices in the world market.
It is currently one of the biggest marketers of textiles, semi conductors and processed food and food products, all of which are produced abundantly by developing countries like the Philippines.
But China is not as rigid in its sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) requirements, which are the quality standards commonly used by WTO members against trade with one another. SPS has thus become an area of stiff resistance among member countries because it has evolved into another non-tariff wall against, open trading systems.
In the end, Serrano said, "it is better for China to adopt a uniform trading system with WTO than discriminatory bilateral agreements with individual countries.