Lack of trade treaties blocking banana exports

Published October 1, 2012 5:11pm

The absence of bilateral trade agreements is preventing bananas from being exported to countries other than the United States, a group of banana growers and exporters said Monday. According to the Philippine Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA), countries such as Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kurdistan and Palau have expressed interest in buying bananas from the Philippines. However, says PBGEA president Steve Antig in a phone interview, the Philippines cannot export bananas to these countries without bilateral agreements.

"What they can do, if they are really interested to import, is to secure an import permit from their countries. The permit will allow them to import bananas from us," he said. Antig added that the country has been fielding many queries about banana prices and imports from other nations.

"There are a lot of queries. But until such a time that we have effective bilaterals with these countries, we cannot export. We are asking the government to speed up the process," he said. In August, countries in the Middle East committed to import 3.36 million boxes of Cavendish bananas in the next six months. The country is also expected to ship bananas to the US in early 2013.

Antig added that despite the ban on Philippine bananas to China being lifted, exporters are still running into difficulties with China's quarantine meaures.

"As we say, you can export at your own risk," he said. "There is no guarantee that all you shipments will be accomodated by the Chinese Quarantine. It will be a stroke of luck [if] all your shipments...are released by Beijing for sale in China. Many shipments are still being rejected." So far, the number of banana shipments to China that have been rejected totals 659 container vans, worth $2.6 million. — BM, GMA News

Tags: bananaexports, pbgea