By Mohammad Shoeb
DOHA: The Philippine Embassy in Qatar is working to convene the inaugural meeting of the ‘Joint Ministerial Commission for Bilateral Cooperation’ (JMCBC) with Qatar to further strengthen bilateral cooperation in a host of areas, including trade, investments, economics and politics.
The existing joint committee meetings between the two countries focus only on labour and employment-related issues, according to information provided by the Philippine Embassy in Qatar.
Qatar and the Philippines have inked several bilateral agreements in the past, which include cooperation in economic, commercial and technical fields, air services, tourism, agriculture and fisheries, manpower employment, and an MoU between the respective chambers of commerce and industry.
The Philippines is striving to enhance the volume of its exports to Qatar and is also trying to attract Qatari investments to the Philippines aiming to make the bilateral trade more balanced.
The trade balance between the two countries is currently lopsided in favour of Qatar.
“The upcoming meeting is in line with the MoU on the Establishment of a Joint Ministerial Commission for Bilateral Cooperation signed on March 10, 1997 in Doha between the late Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Domingo L Siazon, Jr., and then Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs, HE Ahmad bin Abdullah Al Mahmoud,” said Wilfredo C Santos, the Philippines Ambassador to Qatar, in an e-mail interview with The Peninsula.
“This JMCBC meeting will hopefully provide the mechanism to regularly review economic and other aspects of our bilateral relations,” added Wilfredo.
“There is, however, an existing Joint Committee Meeting (JCM) on Labour Matters. The 1st JCM was held in Bohol, Philippines, in 2009, followed by Doha’s hosting of the 2nd round on February 4-5, 2015. The Philippines is scheduled to host the third round, but we are just waiting for our Department of Labour and Employment to identify the dates.”
The Filipino envoy noted that the JCM, as the name suggests, focuses only on labour-related matters, hence the need for the JMCBC to handle other aspects of bilateral relations, including trade, investments and economics.
“Meanwhile, we are hoping to conclude the negotiations over the proposed agreements on health cooperation, cultural cooperation, and visa waiver for holders of diplomatic, official and special passports,” said Ambassador Wilfredo.
The trade volume between the Philippines and Qatar peaked in 2013 when the value of bilateral exchange of goods stood at QR3.78bn ($1.04bn). This was the year when Qatar’s trade balance with the Philippines also peaked to QR3.64bn ($1.00bn).
However, with steady decline in bilateral trade volume (in goods) between the two countries since 2013, Qatar’s trade balance with the Southeast Asian country in 2015 declined by QR888.41m ($243.97m) to QR1.32bn ($363.04m), down by 40 percent compared to QR2.21bn ($607.01m) in 2014.
The bilateral trade value in 2015 touched QR1.49bn ($410.29m), showing a decline of over 37 percent compared to QR2.37bn ($652.35m) in the previous year, according to data provided by the embassy.
The trade data so far for 2016 has yet to be released by the DTl of the Philippines.
“We were recently ranked number five from our previous position as number 11 among the Philippine Foreign Service Posts in the Middle East and Africa in the area of economic diplomacy. And over the past two years, our exports to Qatar have been slowly growing from $20.56m (QR74.89m) in 2013 to $23.62m (QR86.01m) last year,” added Wilfredo.
The Peninsula
