BANGKOK – China remains as the Philippines’ biggest trading partner despite the maritime conflict in the West Philippine Sea, according to Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez.
In a media interview on the sidelines of a regional summit in Thailand, Lopez said the territorial conflict has “no impact” on the commercial activities between the two Asian neighbors, adding the bilateral trade volume has even increased in recent years.
The South China Sea issue was “more of political security, geopolitical issue, not really economic in nature,” Lopez added.
“There’s free flow of goods. Wala naging restrictions sa commercial vessels at transactions pagpasok at paglabas ng goods from Philippines to China, vice versa. Our trade with China has increased. They are the number one trading partner right now,” he said.
“Those issues that would involve code of conduct, concerning West Philippine Sea would not have any impact on the commercial activities in terms of exportation and importation to and fro the Philippines, to China and with other trading partners so there’s no impact,” he said.
Lopez said China ranked as the country’s third or fourth trading partner 10 years ago but gradually rose to the top spot in the past few years.
“We have posted strong growth in exports and imports because there are many products better supplied by China. In other words, we get affordable products from China,” he said. “With the Philippines growing so fast, they either source it locally or if it can’t be met, we will import. So our import growth also increased,” he added.
Lopez admitted though that many Southeast Asian countries have suffered a decline in exports amid the trade war between the United States and China. “There is a slowdown caused by the US-China trade tensions. We hope the issue to be tempered down,” he said.
The Philippines and China are locked in a dispute on overlapping claims in the South China Sea. Recently, tension in the disputed region escalated when a Chinese ship hit a Filipino fishing boat off Recto Bank and abandoned the distressed fishermen at sea. A Vietnamese vessel subsequently rescued the Filipino crew.
President Duterte has described the incident as a little maritime accident but has agreed to a proposed joint investigation with China to uncover the truth and put a closure to the matter. (Genalyn Kabiling)