The garment manufacturers has urged Garments and Textile Export Board (GTEB) that unscrupulous brokers are involved in transshipments and have told GTEB to go after them.

The GTEB said this was the content of the statements furnished by the 23 local manufacturers earlier implicated in the illegal garment shipments.

“These exporters claim no knowledge of the transshipments and point to brokers as the culprits,” Trade Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II said.

Roxas said the firms claimed they were only used unwittingly and were actually victimized by unscrupulous brokers.

Transshipment occurs when products from other countries are made to appear as Philippine exports through fabrication of documents. The products arrive in their export destinations under the quota dedicated to the Philippines.

Earlier this year, the GTEB, a DTI-attached agency, uncovered $8.2-million worth of garments “trans-shipped” allegedly by local firms.

Roxas urged garment and textile firms to avoid doing business with unscrupulous brokers who lure exporters to engage in illegal garment shipments.

“This illegal practice may provide easy money in the short-term but in the long run, our garment export industry will be at the losing end,” Roxas said.

The trade chief said firms involved in transshipments will face closure and disqualification to engage in any garments export activity and cancellation of quota allotment and licenses.