DTI warns Thailand over trade issues
Credit to Author: Mayvelin U. Caraballo, TMT| Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2019 16:24:12 +0000
TRADE Secretary Ramon Lopez warned that the Philippines will be forced to exercise retaliatory trade measures against Thailand if the latter will continue to snob a recent World Trade Organization (WTO) rulings on customs valuation reforms.
In an interview on Wednesday, Lopez said the Philippines may restrict all vehicle imports from Thailand if it will not follow the WTO ruling on valuation for cigarette shipments.
“We try to convince first Thailand, but that (retaliatory) is our next move. If they don’t (implement the ruling), we will be forced to do the retaliatory move already,” Lopez said.
In July, the WTO ruled in favor of the Philippines’ claim that Thailand has repeatedly underdeclared the customs value of cigarette — a violation of customs valuation agreement (CVA) when declaring cigarette exports.
According to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the CVA mandates that customs value of imported goods be measured at transaction value or the “price actually paid or payable for the goods when sold for export to the country of importation.”
It said “these unlawful measures threaten criminal prosecution and even the imprisonment of a number of employees of the importer in Thailand, Philip Morris International Thailand.”
In 2010, a WTO panel and an appellate body ruled that Thailand violated the CVA and other
WTO rules. Thailand was also found to be noncompliant of the new customs valuation measures by WTO in November last year.
Lopez said he prefers to impose tariffs on Thailand’s auto exports instead of implementing quantitative restrictions (QR).
“To me, tariff is preferred always than QR. In QR, there are rent seekers, and its implementation will be difficult since it is subject to corruption in the regulatory part of it and there’s no revenue,” he said.