DTI-EMB on pace to meet 2015 target information sessions by year-end
posted 07 October 2015
DTI’s Export Marketing Bureau (EMB) Director Senen M. Perlada(standing) urges participants to the ?Doing Business in Free Trade Areas (DBFTA)? information session to take advantage of the free trade agreements the Philippines has signed with trading partners.
The Export Marketing Bureau (EMB) under the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is on pace to meet its 2015 target of 175 information sessions before the year ends. During the first seven months of the year, EMB had successfully conducted 168 sessions for 4,732 companies and 14,568 participants. The participants represented exporters, business groups, the academe, individual companies, local government units, and government line agencies nationwide.
EMB resource teams including their partners from the Bureau of Customs (BOC), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Tariff Commission (TC), and other government agencies and private organizations had conducted sessions in Laoag City, Pangasinan, Tuguegarao, Nueva Viscaya, Baguio, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Pampanga, Angeles City, Zambales, Bataan, Baler, Bulacan, National Capital Region (NCR), Rizal Province, Cavite City, Tagaytay, Laguna, Batangas, Quezon Province, Romblon, CAMSUR, and Albay.
DFTA sessions were also held in Iloilo, Guimaras, Bacolod City, Cebu, Bohol, Dumaguete City, Tacloban, Ormoc, Zamboanga City, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, General Santos, Dinagat Islands, Agusan Del Sur, Butuan, Surigao Del Norte, and Surigao Del Sur.
EMB also held an outbound mission to Manado and Jakarta, Indonesia in April this year.
Senen M. Perlada, EMB director, expressed elation at the number of sessions and participants the EMB advocacy continues to generate.
“The attendance and participation of companies – including exporters and would-be exporters, individuals, business groups, local government units (LGUs) – to these sessions, and the questions and clarifications they seek from the resource speakers are a testimonial to the tremendous interest our public awareness campaign regarding export opportunities abroad generates,” he said.
Since the DBFTA program started in 2010, the EMB has conducted 613 sessions participated in by 72,150 people representing 21,244 companies.
The EMB conducts these information sessions at the request of its regional offices, private business groups, schools, and individual companies, with the end goal of making existing and potential exporters aware of the rules and regulations of trade and the government programs and services that local manufacturers can avail themselves.
Currently, the EMB?s public awareness campaign on its export development advocacy is anchored on its programs called ?Doing Business in Free Trade Areas (DBFTA),??Trade with the European Union under the Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (EU GSP+),? and the Integration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 10-member countries into a single economy called the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) starting this year.
To facilitate trade, the country has signedfree trade agreements (FTAs) with other ASEAN member nations and with ASEAN partner economies, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Sessions concerning these trading partners focus on particular products that can be exported to each country, trade rules and regulations in effect that need to be followed, and the competitive advantage Philippine exporters can exploit vis-a-vis these trading partners. In the case of Muslim countries, the EMB also conducts sessions on halal foods and products.
The Philippines started to enjoy the GSP+ preferential status effective 25 December 2014. This gave the country, along with 12 other countries, the privilege of exporting to the EU’s member countries at zero or vastly reduced tariffs for more than 6,000 product lines.
The EMB’s information sessions on EU GSP+ discuss specific EU standards on exports, rules of origin, tariffs, customs regulations, and other trade-related topics.
On the other hand, sessions on ASEAN Economic Integration focus on doing business with the ASEAN as a group or as individual countries and their specific export requirements.