International Trade and Investments in the Philippines: Some Policy Issues and Implications for Further Research

• Main Author: Taningco, Angelo B.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: trade liberalization; Trade policies; Trade reforms; philippines; Antitrust and Trade Regulation; International Economics; International Trade Law; Regional Economics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/res_aki/150; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/res_aki/article/1156/viewcontent/INTERNATIONAL_TRADE_AND_INVESTMENTS_IN_THE_PHILIPPINES.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

The Philippines has embarked on domestic economic reforms and the promotion of regional economic integration and multilateral trade liberalization with the purpose of strengthening international trade and investment. The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), in its Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016, has enunciated strategies that aim to improve the competitiveness of the domestic economy’s industrial and services sectors and narrow the country’s infrastructure gaps. In 2007, the Philippines, together with other Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) countries adopted the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint, with the countries agreeing to accelerate the transformation of the region to an AEC—a region with a “single market and production base” and “with free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labour, freer flow of capital”—by 2015. One of the reforms undertaken to support the establishment of AEC is the ASEAN Single Window. This was created in 2005 to provide consistent, efficient, simple, and transparent customs processes, transactions, and decisions to lower trade costs and improve trade facilitation in the region.