TRADE Assistant Secretary Rafaelita Aldaba said all government agencies should help strengthen local micro, small and medium enterprises to enable them to take advantage of the opportunities that will arise with the creation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC).
“With the AEC and our strengthened positioning in Europe, both public and private sectors working together will enable our MSMEs to participate in the global value chain, generate quality jobs, and ensure growth particularly in the regions,” Aldaba said in a statement.
The AEC aims to transform the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region into a single market and production base, with free flow of goods, services, investments, and capital. The Asean market is a combined market of 600 million.
To date, 98.6 percent of goods are traded among Asean member countries at zero tariff.
The Philippines also currently benefits from a European Union (EU) Generalized System of Preferences Plus status, which grants duty-free access to more than 6,000 products exported to EU.
“We are making good progress in collectively addressing the opportunities AEC presents as well as the challenges industry faces to fully comply with AEC targets.
Initiatives are also in place to prepare our industries to take advantage of the EU GSP+,” Aldaba added.
To support local industries, DTI has facilitated collaborations between private and public sectors to craft and implement sectoral industry roadmaps.
To date, there are 35 industry roadmaps submitted to the BOI which include aerospace, automotive and automotive parts, manufacturing, metal casting, among others.
DTI has conducted industry roadmap localization conferences in key cities in the country including Iloilo, Cebu, Davao, Baguio, Tagaytay, and Palawan.