THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said it is pinning its hopes on a Philippines-United Arab Emirates (UAE) Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) to help close the gap with the rest of region in developing trade links with the Middle East.
“Despite the UAE being a small market, they import about $420 billion from the rest of the world, while imports from ASEAN are about $22.91 billion,” Biance Pearl R. Sykimte, director of the DTI Export Marketing Bureau, said at a public hearing on Friday.
“And if you look at our competitors (in Southeast Asia), they export two to five or six times what the Philippines exports to the UAE,” she added.
The Philippines exported around $1.5 billion of products to the UAE in 2022, according to Ms. Sykimte, against the $2.06 billion by Myanmar, $3.27 by Indonesia, $4.91 billion by Thailand, and $7.47 by Vietnam.
“There’s still a lot of unrealized export potential in the UAE market, about $380 billion. And based on the study done by the International Trade Center, $211 billion of this unrealized export potential is growth-based,” she said.
“Meaning, this is based on the projected growth of the UAE market and the growth of the Philippine exports to the UAE,” she added.
The Philippines exports around $130 million worth of agricultural products to the UAE, she said.
“The UAE imports nearly $2 billion in farm goods, and if you look at how much our ASEAN neighbors are exporting to the market, it is significantly higher,” she said.
Indonesia exported $390 million in agricultural goods to the UAE, Myanmar $370 million, Thailand $320 million, and Vietnam $260 million.
In negotiating the CEPA, the Philippines is interested in the liberalization of trade in products it currently exports to the UAE.
“We also look at what the UAE is importing in large quantities that the Philippines can potentially supply,” she said.
“We also included in our export interest the products that may not be currently being imported by the UAE in large quantities, but there’s export opportunities for the Philippines for these product lines,” she added.
She said the Philippines is focused on easing trade terms for about 98-99% of the products it exports to the UAE market.
The government is targeting to conclude negotiations for the PH-UAE CEPA as early as October.
The third round of negotiations is set for the third week of September.
If realized, this will be the fourth bilateral FTA (free trade agreement) of the Philippines, next to those concluded with Japan, the European Free Trade Association, and South Korea, which is still awaiting ratification. — Justine Irish D. Tabile