By Othel V. Campos

The Philippines is finalizing an agreement that will encourage small banana farmers to export to Japan.

“We’ve submitted a final protocol for JPEPA [Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement] that is now up for comment,” said Joel Rudinas, director of the Bureau of Plant Industry.

He said the Philippine government planned to pursue and exploit the agreement on banana exports under JPEPA to allow small banana growers to benefit from the trade agreement.

“They’re bringing down the tariffs from 20 percent to 9 percent, and we want to pursue that,” he said.

Cotabato Rep. Emmylou Taliño Mendoza has urged the government to increase banana exports to Japan following a growing Japanese popular diet that virtually wiped out the fruit supply in supermarket racks.

The Philippines, after Ecuador, is now the world’s second-biggest banana exporter, with a global market share of 16 percent. The Philippines in 2007 shipped out 1.905 million metric tons of bananas worth $440 million.

The Philippine export volume, however, was just 40 percent of the 4.65 million MT shipped out by Ecuador that year. Ecuador cornered 34 percent of the global banana export market in 2007.

Mendoza urged the Agriculture and Trade Departments to support local banana growers and exporters in terms of infrastructure, low-cost loans, technical assistance, or marketing support, to increase productivity and expand the country’s global market share.

The Philippines’ other rivals in the banana export market are India, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Costa Rica and Mexico.

Ibon Foundation, a non-government group, meanwhile, conceded that Philippine banana and pineapple exports might increase with the implementation of the JPEPA. But it said the agreement would benefit transnational corporations more than Filipino growers.

US-based Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita/Unifrutti jointly account for almost three-fourths of total Philippine banana exports and corner the bulk of exports to Japan.

The three companies also control over two-thirds of world banana exports. Dole and Del Monte are the main players in the domestic pineapple industry and, along with Chiquita, are the biggest agri-business corporations in the global industry.

Ibon claimed that even if tariffs on Philippine pineapples and bananas were reduced over time under JPEPA, food exports would remain small. It cited that the share of Philippine exports to Japan had actually declined, accounting for only 7.4 percent of total exports from 2001 to 2006.