RP cuts tariffs on selected goods under AFTA

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Tuesday issued three executive orders that either cut or eliminate tariffs on selected imports from member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Acting on the go-signal of the National Economic and Development Authority Investment Coordination Committee (NEDA-ICC), the president did away with tariffs on certain products under the common effective preferential tariff (CEPT) scheme. The common effective preferential tariff scheme is a cooperative arrangement among ASEAN member states to cut intraregional tariffs and remove nontariff barriers over a 10-year period starting on January 1, 1993. The scheme aims to reduce tariffs on all manufactured goods to 0-5%. This is supposed to benefit Philippine exporters to ASEAN by making the country’s products cheaper in these markets, thus stimulating greater demand. The goal of the CEPT scheme is to make ASEAN a free trade area through common effective tariffs among member states in the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), but the level of tariffs vis-à-vis non-ASEAN countries will continue to be determined individually. All manufactured products, including capital goods and processed agricultural products, and those falling outside the definition of “unprocessed agricultural products" are covered by the CEPT scheme. Remonde said the Philippines is enforcing the Philippine tariff schedule under the ASEAN-Japan comprehensive economic partnership agreement, as well as the Philippine tariff schedule under the trade and goods chapter of the agreement establishing the ASEAN, Australia, New Zealand free trade area. “We are moving in this direction," Press Secretary Cerge Remonde told a briefing. He said the executive orders are pursuant to the ASEAN Free Trade Area, which seeks to remove tariffs or taxes on goods and scraps quantitative restrictions and other nontariff barriers. — GMANews.TV