THE Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) warned that the Department of Finance’s (DoF’s) plan to tax sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is allegedly discriminatory to foreign products and may leave the country vulnerable to a World Trade Organization complaint.
THE GOVERNMENT is set to notify the World Trade Organization (WTO) on its failure to prepare for the end of the quantitative restriction (QR) regime on rice.
THE WORLD Trade Organization (WTO) has asked its members to start preparing for the enforcement of the new trade facilitation agreement (TFA) by notifying the agency about their technical assistance and capacity-building needs to ensure its effective implementation.
A LIST of measures intended to ease trade facilitation in the Philippines will likely be submitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) later this year, an official yesterday said.
THE COUNTRY has yet to decide whether to hale Thailand back to arbitration for failing to fully comply with a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling concerning cigarette taxation, a Cabinet official said.
THE PHILIPPINES is expected to decide by November whether it will take Thailand back to arbitration for failing to fully comply with a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling concerning cigarette taxation, a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) official said last week.
MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine government will investigate whether it should put in place safeguard measures on imports of newsprint from other countries amid claims by the domestic industry that newsprints imports are threatening the local newsprint production. In a notice posted on the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) website, the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the international body said the country has initiated a safeguards investigation on the imports of newsprint from various countries. “The investigation was initiated on Sept. 20, 2013,” the notice read. The investigation is being conducted following an evaluation of the petition filed by the domestic newsprint industry represented by Trust International Paper Corp. (TIPCO). TIPCO is the dominant local player for newsprint. Locally produced newsprint is made mainly from recycled paper. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 It is used for newspapers, books and school pads. In the notice, the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the WTO said the documents submitted by the petitioner showed that “increased imports have caused serious injury to the local newsprint industry as indicated in their declining market share, production, sales, capacity utilization, productivity, profitability, price suppression, depression and undercutting.” DTI assistant secretary Ceferino Rodolfo said in a text message yesterday that since the investigation would look into safeguards, two elements have to be established by the investigation. In particular, the investigators would look at whether there was an increase in quantities of imports and whether such are causing serious injury to the local industry. Read More …
AS global trade is increasingly affected by technological progress, demographic shifts, availability of natural resources, government policies, and developing nations’ progress, the World Trade Organization stresses “trade for development.”