The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) will help local businessmen and farmers address the threat posed by the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) in 2015.
This was the statement of Ed Du, president of the Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NOCCI), amidst concerns raised by local entrepreneurs over the impact of AFTA in local products and agricultural produce.
Du said DOST will help local businesses produce affordable yet quality products that can compete with imported goods once AFTA takes effect in 2015.
“We need DOST because if we continue to rely on the traditional methods of producing our goods, time will come that we no longer have an agricultural industry in the Philippines because consumers will resort to buying imported products from other countries like China and Taiwan,” said Du during a recent forum held by the Philippine Information Agency in Dumaguete City.
Philippines is one of the signatories of AFTA, a trade bloc agreement signed by member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with the aim of increasing ASEAN’s competitive edge as a production base in the world market by eliminating tariffs and non-tariff barriers within ASEAN countries.
Once AFTA is implemented in 2015, Du said local markets will be flooded by imported products from countries like Taiwan and China.
“Everything, you name it, from needles to battleships, will enter the country zero tariff,” he explained.
In view of said bilateral trade agreement, Du said local businesses must step up and make their products competitive in quality and cost so they will also sell in other ASEAN countries.
He said DOST can help local entrepreneurs develop technologies that will lessen the cost of goods without affecting its quality.
NOCCI earlier helped 10 of its members avail of DOST’s Small Enterprises Technology Upgrading Program (Setup) which offers financial aid and science and technology interventions to small entrepreneurs for them to boost their productivity.
“This is the challenge. We have to compete with Chinese onions, Taiwanese camote, Japanese carrots by 2015. We should prepare now,” he said. (RMN-PIA7, Negros Oriental)
