The Philippines’ free trade negotiations with the European Union, Canada and other partners will continue on schedule after the departure of chief trade negotiator Allan Gepty, Trade Secretary Cristina Roque said. President Marcos appointed Gepty, a trade undersecretary, as one of three new associate justices of the Court of Appeals.
Gepty led the country’s talks with the United Arab Emirates, the EU, Chile and Canada, and worked on updating the existing trade agreement with Japan. At the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), he oversaw the Bureau of International Trade Relations (BITR), the Strategic Trade Management Office and the Philippine International Trading Corporation. A lawyer who also studied economics, he joined the DTI in late 2018 as assistant secretary for international trade policy and negotiations. He had earlier been deputy director general of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines and a commissioner of the Philippine Tariff Commission.
His duties will pass jointly to BITR Director Marie Sherylyn Aqui and Assistant Director Regina Callo Serafico. Roque said the EU and Canada talks were nearly finished and that the bureau’s team was capable of concluding them on target. She said she was personally overseeing the negotiations. “We will definitely have a smooth transition,” she said. Splitting the role between the director and her deputy keeps the talks with officials who already know the files, rather than bringing in an outside appointee partway through.
The handover comes at a busy moment. The DTI wants to complete three agreements this year: the bilateral pact with the EU, which reached a “substantial conclusion” in September, a separate deal with Canada and the revised agreement with Japan. Marcos has said the country has 23 free trade agreements either in force or under negotiation, though only two bilateral deals, with Japan and South Korea, are currently in effect.
Exports give the negotiators some momentum. Merchandise shipments reached an all-time high of $9.11 billion in August, up 27.8 per cent from $7.13 billion a year earlier, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. Roque has also said the DTI plans to begin talks on a preferential trade agreement with India next year. Whether the new team can close the EU and Canada deals before year-end will be the first test of the transition, and of the bench strength Roque says the bureau has built.
