This weekend, Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda asked President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who also holds the post of Agriculture Secretary, to push for zero tariffs for bananas in Japan. With Japan as the Philippines’ main market for banana exports and a leading ally of the country, the lawmaker hopes it would allow for zero taxes or duties on bananas.
“There is one single, most important, most immediate effort for the country’s domestic banana sector: zero tariffs for Philippine bananas in Japan, our strategic partner,” he said in a statement.
Salceda described how the country’s banana sector was impacted by ‘disease, global competition, investor flight, and climate change’: “If we don’t act on the problems of the sector, we will lose our dominance over bananas in Asia by 2030. Climate change and disease are existential threats to the sector. But relatively high tariffs in our main banana markets, high input costs, and competition from other players are killing the sector by slow but steady strangulation.”
He cited that Japan has already slashed tariff to zero for Mexico, Peru, Cambodia, and Laos, while Laos and Cambodia are already becoming emerging sources of banana exports. Pre-pandemic, the Philippines exported roughly $2 billion in bananas. By 2021, it declined to just over $1 billion.
Source: mb.com.ph