The European Union (EU) has recast its development efforts on trade as a vehicle to help developing countries reduce their poverty incidence and provide sustainable opportunities for growth.

Since the establishment of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) as the trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the EU has strongly advocated open rules-based trade negotiation to ensure fair, free, and safe trade. On October 2007, “the EU adopted the EU Aid for Trade Strategy to help developing countries to better integrate into the rules-based world trading system and to more effectively use trade in promoting the overarching objective of eradication of poverty in the context of sustainable development” (European Communities, 2008).

However, the adoption of this strategy is preceded with a long-list of development assistance extended by the EU to the third world countries to meet their responsibilities in the evolving global trading system that is progressively shaped with rules and regulations aimed at ensuring public health and public safety.

This development assistance comes as a co-operation package between the EU and the beneficiary country.

In 2004, the Doha Round forged through with its intent to focus talks on market access, trade facilitation, and elimination of agricultural export subsidies following the collapse of Cancun talks the preceding year. Although the negotiations among countries were spiked with disagreements on particularly on Singapore issues, the EU has remained steadfast with its commitment to “a level playing field, rules that all teams accept and a referee to ensure fair play. This is why the EU is a firm supporter of WTO, which lays down a set of rules to help open up global trade and ensure fair treatment for all participants (http://www.ec.europa.eu/trade/).

On the other hand. “the Philippines is fully committed to multilateral trade arrangements and to the liberalisation of its trade and economy” (Europe-Aid/121182/C/SV/PH). But a number of constraints that are generally technical in nature has impeded its active participation in the global trade and thus has reduced its opportunity to derived greater benefits from such global arrangements.

“The implementation of technical barriers to trade (TBT), sanitary and phytosanitay (SPS), and customs agreements are particularly challenging from a technical point of view. The Philippines is adapting its national legislative and regulatory framework accordingly and striving to fulfill its obligations. However, the knowledge and skills of both the officials and the private sector concerned have to be upgraded accordingly” (Europe-Aid/121182/C/SV/PH).

Towards the end of the 2004, the EU and Philippines came to conclude a cooperation that will address these constraints. In 2005, the first Trade Related Technical Assistance (TRTA) was formalized between the EU and the Philippines. The EU provided PhP 210 million (3.5m euro at 1 euro to PhP 60 exchange rate) for this technical assistance. TRTA 1 concluded in the third quarter of 2008 and was succeeded with the second phase of TRTA in the closing months of the same year.

This webpage presents as well as it documents the current development activities of the second phase of TRTA as it responds to its goal of reducing poverty in the Philippines through increased integrated in international trade.