Official: PHL ready for trade talks with EU in 3 mos.

The Philippines will be ready for bilateral trade agreement negotiations with the European Union (EU) in three months’ time, a Trade official said Wednesday. Trade Undersecretary Adrian Cristobal Jr. said consultations with stakeholders are underway so the agency could assess how a free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU will affect the Philippines. Domestic consultations would run for at least three months, Cristobal said, after which the agency hopes to "sit down with EU counterparts for preliminary talks within the year, possibly in the fourth quarter." “We want to prepare ourselves [before] entering into negotiations with the EU," he said. Inputs from the business and industry sectors will form part of the Philippine-EU preferential trade agreement study, which the DTI will fund, he added. The Trade official disclosed that the EU is prepared to negotiate with the Philippine for a bilateral FTA, as it had already conducted assessments when it was eyeing a regional FTA with the ASEAN. Within the region, Malaysia and Singapore are currently negotiating with the EU for an FTA. Vietnam is also set to negotiate for the same. — JMT/VS, GMA News