RP assails U.S. import barrier

RP assails U.S. import barrier

MANILA (AFP): The United States has unfairly banned imports of
shrimps and prawns from the Philippines for violating
environmental standards on harvesting them, a trade official said
here.

Trade Undersecretary Cesar Bautista said the Philippines had
been included in a list of Association of Southeast Asian Nation
(ASEAN) members banned from exporting shrimps and prawns to the
United States because their harvesting methods also kill
endangered sea-turtles.

Bautista said the Philippines should not be covered by the ban
since the its shrimps and prawns were raised in aquaculture
farms, not harvested from the sea.

He noted that Brunei and Indonesia had already been exempted
from the ban because they did not use fishing methods that kill
sea-turtles and added that the Philippines should also be
exempted "since in the first place, the rule does not apply to
us."

Bautista said he had raised the concern in recent meetings
with U.S. trade officials in Washington.

Philippine exports of shrimps and prawns to the United States
hit US$20 million last year.

Bautista also said the Philippines could finally be removed
from the U.S. watchlist of countries that do not adequately
enforce intellectual property rights (IPR) if the Philippine
congress were to pass a stronger copyright law.

He told reporters that the International Intellectual Property
Alliance, a U.S. group that works for IPR enforcement, said U.S.
companies lost at least $112 million from IPR violations in the
Philippines last year.

This included $70 million from piracy of books, $26 million
from movies and $3 million from audio recordings.

The Philippines was downgraded last year from the U.S.
"priority watchlist" of IPR violators who faced possible trade
sanctions but it still remains on the secondary watchlist.

ASEAN members are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.