WTO, FTAs: Instruments of imperialist domination

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WTO, FTAs Instruments of imperialist domination

• Launching Forum of
• NO DEAL! MOVEMENT AGAINST UNEQUAL AGREEMENTS
• Quezon City
• November 9, 2007

2
Philippine poverty and backwardness

• Widespread poverty
• Worsening inequality
• Agricultural and industrial backwardness
• Overly reliant on cheap labor export, foreign
  capital- and debt

3
Filipinos aspire and struggle for development

• For
• true agrarian reform
• genuine national industrialization
• Against
• imperialist domination of the economy
• exploiting cheap labor, plundering natural
  resources and dominating our markets
• exploitative international economic deals
• multilateral WTO agreements
• bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), regional
  trade agreements (RTAs), economic partnership
  agreements (EPAs)
• Go far beyond just trade ? also investment,
  services, competition policy, intellectual
  property rights, labor, govt procurement, dispute
  settlement

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(1) FTAs deny us essential policies for
development

• To build domestic economy we need
• Trade protection against imports ? to give local
  producers the opportunity to develop
• Tariff/non-tariff barriers
• Foreign investment controls ? to ensure benefits
  from FDI
• Equity requirements, domestic content, local
  hiring, technology transfer

5
(1) FTAs deny us essential policies for
development

• Policies affirmed by historical experience
• Used by all First World countries when they were
  developing
• Britain, France, Germany, US, Japan (19th
  century-1950s)
• Used by handful of Third World countries which
  made any sort of economic progress
• South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia (1960s-1980/90s)
• Used by Socialist countries
• Russia (1917), China (1949)

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(2) FTAs impose policies that have already
severely damaged the economy

• Philippines has been actively liberalizing trade
  and investment since the 1980s/90s
• IMF-WB impositions, WTO agreements
• Arguably the most liberalized country in
  Southeast Asia and also one of its poorest
  performing

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(2) FTAs impose policies that have already
severely damaged the economy

• Trade doubled as percentage of GDP
• 52 (1980) ? 105 (2005)
• Foreign investment quadrupled as percentage of
  GDP
• 4 (1980) ? 14 (2005)
• YET
• Record sustained joblessness
• Unemplt 8 (1980) ? 11 (2001-05)
• 12 million Filipinos looking for work/additional
  work (2006) ? OFW export
• De-industrialization and shrinking manufacturing
• Share in GDP 26 (1980)?23(2005)
• Share in employment (11? 9)
• Falling food production per capita, rising
  agricultural trade deficits

8
JPEPA is unequal, defeatist and destructive

• Grossly unequal
• Backward Philippines gives up much more than
  advanced Japan
• Philippines deal worse than negotiated by
  Malaysia and Indonesia

9
JPEPA is unequal, defeatist and destructive

• Defeatist
• Surrenders Philippine policy sovereignty and use
  of necessary economic policy tools
• National Treatment, Most-Favored-Nation (MFN)
  Treatment, prohibition of performance
  requirements on investments
• Unprecedented protection for Japanese investors.
  Investment FDI, portfolio investment
  intellectual property, contractual rights, tax
  breaks (taxation as expropriation)
• Note JPEPA includes Singapore Issues already
  rejected at WTO for being anti-developmental

10
JPEPA is unequal, defeatist and destructive

• Destructive
• JPEPA drastically restricts the Philippines
  policy options precedent-setting vis-à-vis Japan
  and sets a dangerous benchmark for other FTAs
• Note Handful of FTAs makes WTO virtually
  redundant, where Japan EU US Greater China
  ASEAN 90 of countrys intl trade and
  investment
• Job losses in auto/auto parts assembly and
  iron/steel sectors, fisheries toxic waste
  imports commodification of nurses/careworkers
• Millions of jobs that will never be created
  because of stifled domestic development

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• NO Deal! stands for democratic governance,
  economic sovereignty and building the national
  economy
• NO Deal! supports economic relations based on
  equality and mutual benefit
• NO Deal! rejects all unequal trade agreements
  which further undermine our already devastated
  economy
• JPEPA, EU-ASEAN, RP-US, RP-China

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Maraming salamat!