The Bureau of Import Services (BIS) of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), in cooperation with Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) LLP Canada, conducted a 3-day Capacity Building workshop on Trade Remedies from December 04 to 06, 2019 at the 1898 Hotel Colonia En Las Filipinas, Makati City. This event was preceded by an orientation seminar which targeted different industries such as steel, cement, glass, ceramics, paper, roofing, metals, and chemicals last November 28 at the Peninsula Manila, Makati City.
The BIS is the implementing agency that conducts the initiation and preliminary investigation of applications for trade remedy measures such as Republic Act Nos. 8800 (The Safeguard Measures Act), 8752 (The Anti-Dumping Act) and 8751 (The Countervailing Act). Also, the BIS provides assistance to the Philippine exporters confronted with trade remedy petitions filed by their competitors in the international markets.
The increasing trade liberalization among members of the international trade community, the presence of different multilateral and bilateral agreements and the unforeseen development in the economy led to the increase in the flow of goods and services among nations. As such some domestic industries are seriously injured by surge in imports and others are materially injured due to unfair trade caused by imports with dumped prices and subsidies. For this reason, the BIS conducted an information campaign to orientate the stakeholders on trade policy tools that they may avail to remedy such injury, and share them information relevant to the Philippine National Trade Repository, Export Procedures, Doing Business in the Free Trade Area, and an overview of the Strategic Trade Management Act.
Further, the investigating authorities and relevant government agencies must also enhance capacity, increase knowledge in conducting trade remedy investigation according to the Philippine laws and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements. Hence, a capacity building workshop was conducted which was attended by representatives from the Tariff Commission (TC), Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Finance (DOF), Bureau of Customs (BOC), Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and other Bureaus and attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), namely, Legal Service (LS), Foreign Trade Service Corps (FTSC), Strategic Trade Management Office (STMO), Bureau of International Trade Relations (BITR), Consumer Protection and Advocacy Bureau (CPAB), Board of Investments (BOI) and Bureau of Philippine Standards (BPS).
The lecturers of the said workshop are Jesse Goldman and Jacob Mantle from BLG, LLP, the largest, truly full-service Canadian law firm. It delivers practical legal advice for domestic and international clients across more practices and industries than any Canadian firm. BLG, LLP has extensive trade remedy experience at the national, regional and multilateral levels and handled various trade remedy proceedings over the last two decades.
The workshop is timely as it gave the participants an overview of what is happening in the international trade and enhanced the investigating authorities’ knowledge by providing techniques in the conduct of trade remedies investigation, under the Philippine domestic laws in comparison with the Canadian laws, from the context of the Trade Remedy Agreement under the WTO.♦
Date of Release: 16 December 2019