Manila, May 13 -- The European Union (EU) on Tuesday commended the Philippines for the record-high 80 percent utilization rate of its trade perks under the Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) last year.

The GSP+ is an incentive scheme that grants the Philippines zero percent tariffs for almost 7,000 EU product lines provided that it complies with its obligations to 27 international conventions covering good governance, and human and labor rights, among others.

"The GSP+ utilization of the Philippines has shown an upward trend over the years. We have also the 2024 results and it reached 80 percent of use -- this is a record, there was never such a high level of utilization of GSP+ by the Philippines," EU Ambassador to the Phili...