ECONOMIST SAYS PHILIPPINES NOT READY FOR FTA WITH U.S.

MANILA, Oct 1 Asia Pulse - The Philippines is not yet ready to enter into a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States given the stringent conditions that would be demanded of the Philippines under such a deal, an international economist said.

This was the assessment of Dr. Marcus Noland, senior fellow of the Institute for International Economics during his talk on the "Involvement of the Philippines in the Global Economic Picture" sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines Inc. (AmCham).

Noland cited, for instance, the US-Singapore bilateral FTA which is contained in a voluminous document with several chapters on it that include corruption, human rights and intellectual property rights.

The economist said the US may be willing to negotiate for a bilateral FTA provided the Philippines got these standards to which he doubted as he noted the apparent lack of political will to take up the issue of corruption alone.

He said that Washington was even skeptical of an FTA with the Philippines.

For the US part, Noland said "The US government will be motivated (to negotiate for an FTA with the Philippines) by strategic considerations such as war on terror and possibly have some kind of having military relationship because we can't have military bases. That would be more important."

Noland further offered an advice for the Philippines to follow the example of the Mexican initiative on the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).