DAVAO CITY, June 05 (PIA) – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have recently engaged Davao trade officials and exporters in a seminar in the city which primarily discussed non-tariff measures.
DTI and WTO have intensified its advocacy efforts in providing knowledge and explanation on the importance for a WTO member country to impose non-tariff measures especially since the decline of tariffs in the importation and exportation of products.
JurgenRichtering, chief of the World Trade Organization market access intelligence section, said non-tariff measures aim to protect the local industries in a country from unfair trade practices in the international market.
According to a web definition, non-tariff measures refer to government measures other than tariffs that restrict trade flows.
Two of the common regulations that were discussed during the two-day seminar-workshop held on June 2-3 at the Pinnacle Hotel, were the sanitary and phytosanitary or SPS measures and the technical barriers to trade or TBT measures.
Richtering explained that the application of SPS measures is necessary for the protection of human, animals, plants and their health against the risks caused for example by pesticides and diseases that could be carried by the goods being imported or exported.
“There are countries that require pesticide certification or pest traceability from the farm to export market,” cited Magnolia M. Uy, commercial attaché for the Philippine Trade and Investment Center based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The purpose of the technical barriers to trade o TBT measures, meanwhile, is to avoid unnecessary barriers to international trade and non-discrimination between like products in the international market, Richtering said.
The TBT measures ensure that industrial and agricultural products are in accordance to international quality standards before they could be allowed entry into a country.
Aside from the 32 exporters who attended the seminar, 34 representatives of various government agencies have also been part of the non-tariff measures seminar in Davao.
The seminar was part of the series of information sessions under the Philippine Export Competitiveness Program (PECP) of DTI which aims to provide capacity for exporters to compete in other countries and to prepare them in the coming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
“We have to prepare the exporters, and guide them what to do,” said Sonia Rodriguez, chief of the Export Trade Facilitation Division under DTI Business Matching Center.
She said the WTO seminar in Davao was the first to be conducted outside Metro Manila, adding that more advocacy activities under PECP will push through in the near future. (PIA-11/Carina L. Cayon)
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