THE Philippines as beneficiary of European Unions (EU) General Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) is seen to bring in more investment opportunities for the country, a trade official said. Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Industry Development and Trade Policy Assistant Secretary Dr. Ceferino Rodolfo, who was a guest speaker at DTIs information session on Doing Business with the EU using GSP+ at the Apo View Hotel on Thursday, said they are targeting to capture investors from countries whose products are currently facing definitive anti-dumping duties in the EU and investors coming from Asean especially GSP graduates, like Thailand and Malaysia and non-GSP+ eligible countries Vietnam and Indonesia. He said the anti-dumping duty is being imposed on certain products of a particular country to prevent these from being dumped in the EU. For example, Rodolfo said bicycles entering EU are not only being given the Most Favored Nation (MFN) rate, a tariff rate given to non-GSP and GSP+ countries, but also given an anti-dumping rate. He said the products being dumped are sold at a much lower price as compared to those being sold in their home market. He said with the anti-dumping duty, the product being sold in EU will be the same as to where it came from. There are a range of products that EU has imposed the anti-dumping duties on particular countries, Rodolfo said. He said the opportunity for the Philippines now is being able to attract investors who have production facilities in countries that have been imposed with anti-dumping duties on certain countries. For example, Rodolfo said if there is a Japanese company whose bicycle production facility is in a country wherein bicycle is given anti-dumping duties, Philippines can invite the Japanese company to come to the country since no anti-dumping duties have been imposed for bicycles coming from the Philippines and on top of that, we have the GSP+. As for the Asean investors, Rodolfo said Malaysia and Thailand are now not eligible for the regular GSP and GSP+ since they have already graduated, which means the country now has a per capita gross domestic product of $4,000 or improved from a lower middle income country to a high middle income country. Vietnam and Indonesia, on the other hand, are only under the regular GSP, which covers only 6,209 products with a zero duty rate or 3.5 percent reduction on the MFN rate. The Philippines can invite these Asean investors to come here are start operations here. This is a strategy we are doing to bring in investment into the Philippines and this is relevant to a range of products from agribasesd to light manufactured products, he said. Rodolfo said local investors, most of which are into marine products and agri-based products, also have shown interest to invest domestically in terms of expanding their operations after the implementation of the GSP+. He said the investment opportunities are seen to generate some 200,000 jobs this year but he said this is just a conservative estimate. sunstar.ph/davao/business/2015/01/25/more-investment-opportunities-ph-gsp-388556
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 04:43:18 +0000
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