NGO urgesYap not to sell out the farmers

in his meeting with WTO's Lamy

December 8, 2006

Rice Watch and Action Network (R1) warns Department of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap not to sell out the farmers' interests in his scheduled meeting with WTO Director General Pascal Lamy during the ASEAN meeting.

R1 issued the statement during the Agriculture and Fisheries Stakeholders Conference held today, wherein Secretary Yap is scheduled to speak but cancelled his appearance the night before the event.

"We are counting on you to remain firm on our right to designate agricultural tariff lines and commodities critical to our people's food and livelihood security and to the country's rural development, as Special Products (SP)," said Cantos.

The WTO's Ministerial Conference last year in Hong Kong allowed developing country members the flexibility to self-designate an appropriate number of tariff lines as Special Products with minimal tariff cuts because these are critical to the country's food security, livelihood security and rural development.

Lamy is expected to meet with Yap and Indonesia's Agriculture Minister, two leading members of the G33 – group of developing countries to convince the two countries to soften their position on the Special Products (SSP) and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) to move the WTO negotiations.

"It would be a shame for us if we would be the first to submit to the pressures by Lamy and the developed countries. The government should prove that the Philippines, as one of the leading members of the group of developing countries in the WTO, would hold its fort to the end," said Cantos.

Cantos said the Philippines' tariff rates are very low compared to developed countries and even some developing countries. The country can not afford massive tariff cuts in agriculture and have no other recourse but to maximize these flexibilities.

Out of the total 802 tariff lines under the agricultural products, 259 tariff lines are within the 0-30% range while 543 tariff lines fall under the 30% -60% range. According to Cantos, the relative flatness of the country’s tariff structure indicates that aggressive market access proposals will result to sweeping tariff cuts across all tariff lines, with no provisions for high levels of protection for highly vulnerable or strategic agricultural sub-sectors.

Cantos explained that ongoing simulations among developing countries revealed Malaysia has tariffs of up to 140,000% and Egypt has 3,000% maximum bound rate.

"We believe that different countries have different development objectives and priorities and should have the flexibility to identify which commodities to protect on account of these differences," Cantos said.

Next PR | Back to Press Releases Page