The government has deferred the imposition of safeguard duties on newsprint imports from Europe to give way to an investigation by the Tariff Commission.
The European Commission said it was optimistic the investigation by the commission on safeguard measures on newsprint imports from Europe would prove the integrity of suppliers.
“This is a good sign because under this process, everybody who is involved in the case will have 60 days to respond,” EC economic and trade counselor to the Philippines Walter Van Hattum told reporters Wednesday at the sidelines of a garments plant tour at the Cavite Economic Zone.
EU Ambassador Guy Ledoux led the plant tour at CS Garments Inc. with eight other European ambassadors, Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo and Philippine Economic Zone Authority director general Lilia Delima.
Van Hattum said to invoke the safeguards measure, “one should have to establish causality surge in export-import and injury to local industry and that is difficult to establish.”
He said the government should be able to prove there was a sudden increase in import volume at costs lower than what was domestically produced and it had a negative impact on industries relying on newsprints.
Newspapers and publishing houses are the most affected sectors in the newsprint case.
EU said while it was following the case closely, the Philippines should practice caution “because safeguard is the most stringent trade tools that must be used only very sparingly.”
Van Hattum said if the Philippines would be able to prove the causality, then it could impose measures to protect its own industry.
“The safeguard measure is basically directed towards the whole world, not directed towards one country and you do that because you want to protect your local industry. However, the protective measure can be challenged in WTO and whenever the EU challenged a case in WTO with our trading partners, we always win 100 percent,” said Van Hattum.