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Community must ask legislators to co-sponsor/support RP-US trade bill
Here in New York, about a hundred community leaders trooped to the Philippine Center last week to listen to pleas from officials for Filipino-Americans to write to their respective legislators and urge them to support the bill and come to the aid of both their native and adopted countries.
Officials believe that if passed, the SAVE Act would represent the first significant Philippine-US bilateral trade enhancement and cooperation initiative in decades, further strengthening the long-standing economic ties and friendly relations of both countries.
Commercial Counselor Romulo Manlapig of the Philippine Embassy and Ma. Teresita Jocson-Agoncillo, executive director of the Confederation of Garments Exporters of the Philippines (Congep) briefed the Filipino-American leaders on the Save Our Industries (SAVE) Act, which is now pending in the US Congress and is expected to generate thousands of jobs in the US textile industry and the Philippine garments sector. Leaders from Connecticut, Philadelphia and New Jersey were also present in the meeting.Agoncillo explained that the US market accounts for 80 percent of Philippine garment exports. Philippine apparel shipments to the US declined from $2.1 billion in 2006 to $1 billion in 2009.
Introduced by Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) and co-sponsored by Representative Brian Bilbray (R-CA) in June 2009, SAVE Act essentially grants duty-free entry to the US of certain Philippine-made apparel products which use US fabrics. Tariffs imposed on imported garments in the US range from 17 to 33 percent.
Manlapig explained that SAVE Act is mutually beneficial to both the Philippines and the United States as it will reinvigorate trade between the Philippine apparel industry and trhe US textile industry. The US textile exports to the Philippines is expected to grow from $13.5 million in 2009 to $500 million in five years.
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