Free trade pushes products to become competitive: exec
Free trade agreements (FTA) being entered by the Philippines with other countries caused the shift from the “protectionism” concept to being “competitive” as far as the marketing of products is concerned.
Regional Director Dominic Abad of the Department of Trade and Industry 6 said the idea before was to impose high tariff rates to protect one’s products.
But with the FTA, the focus is more on coming up with competitive products taking into account the quality, volume that can be delivered, prices and the reliability of the product delivery, he said.
“There are no more borders and boundaries because the competition is both at the local and export markets,” he stressed, adding the being competitive is gauged if “one is buying your products sustainably.”
“There is no such thing as export quality anymore, its either you have quality or you don’t have quality because you are competing in this new order now; in terms of products to products and not the marketplace,” he added.
To prepare the business sector and other stakeholders in the region on the impact of the full implementation of the FTA, the DTI, through the Bureau of Export Trade Promotion, gathered the affected sectors, including the academe and the media for a briefing of the FTA recently.
Abad said such was just one of the efforts undertaken by their agency to provide the affected sector with the proper information and requirements that “producers can take advantage of.”
He admitted though the FTA is not yet in its ideal stage because there remains a “certain degree of protectionism.”
However, he said the FTA is moving towards its goal starting with the decreasing tariff rates imposed by signatories to the agreement.
Lea Lara, executive director of the Iloilo Business Club, lauded the DTI for bringing the information down to the local level as the event was able to open opportunities for the business sector.
“This is opening doors for untapped market also. Information here will benefit the business sector in the sense that we will not just depend on the local market but more opportunities to update our products,” she said.
Lara added that really the FTA is really on competition “trying to come up with world class products”.
Lara added it is also a question of whether or not institutions implementing the FTA can assist the business sector.*PNA
