Former senator eyeing revival of US tariff concessions on PH agri exports

MANILA, Philippines — Senatorial aspirant and former senatorJinggoy Estrada on Thursday said that if elected anew, he would push for the revival of US trade privileges on Philippine agricultural exports.

“Tariff concessions on agricultural exports to the US will benefit an estimated 10 million Filipino workers in the agriculture sector,” said Estrada in a statement.

To do this, Estrada said he will coordinate with his counterparts in the US Congress to work for the renewal of the General System of Preferences (GSP) that provides tariff privileges on a long list of agricultural exports.

 He explained that the Philippines was one of the biggest beneficiaries in terms of the removal of tariffs on farm exports — with 15.2 percent or $9.7 billion of the country’s exports in 2019 going to the US in 2019 where roughly 70 percent of agriculture products sold to the US were eligible for GSP.

 The US GSP, however, expired by the end of 2020 and has not been renewed since.

Apart from this, Philippine exports to the US also declined by 16.1 percent in 2020 compared to the $11.57 billion revenues in 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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