Philippines ready to serve 2012 sugar quota for US market

The Philippines is preparing early shipments to be credited to its sugar tariff-rate quota (TRQ) for the United States for fiscal year 2012.

Early delivery would boost sugar supply in the United States and ease the glut in Philippine supply caused by better than expected production, according to stakeholders.

“Adjustments were made for arrival date in the United States of early shipments starting Sept. 1 instead of the normal Oct. 1 due to the tightness of US raw sugar supply,” Sugar Regulatory Administration manager for policy and planning Rosemarie S. Gumera said.

TRQ deliveries normally arrive in the United States starting Oct. 1 since this is the start of the so-called quota year, Gumera said.

But since traders are ready to ship, Gumera said, the amount and pace of deliveries will now depend on the availability of ships that will take the load to the United States.

The Philippines was allocated a higher sugar exports quota for fiscal year 2012.

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement earlier this month that it had kept its sugar TRQ of 1.117 metric tons raw value (mtrv) for 2012 from 2011.

Of the total, 144,901 mtrv was allocated to the Philippines. Next year’s allocation is about 2 percent higher than this year’s 142,160 mtrv.

According to the Philippine Sugar Millers Association, the 142,160 mtrv is the Philippines’ regular quota.

TRQs allow countries to export specified quantities of a product to the US at a relatively low tariff, but subject all imports of the product to a higher tariff. Unserved quotas are usually distributed to “reliable suppliers,” such as the Philippines.

Philippine sugar production will likely hit around 2.4 million tons for the crop year ending Aug. 31, according to industry data. This is well above the projected 1.965 million tons for the 2010-2011 crop year.

There is thus enough supply to meet domestic requirements as well as that of the United States and even orders from other countries, according to stakeholders.

The Philippines has four classifications of sugar: “A” for the US market, which normally makes up around 4 percent of stocks; “B” sugar for local use, which uses up about 90 percent of the country’s sugar inventory; “D” sugar for non-US exports, for which there is no fixed volume; and “C” or reserve sugar, which can be converted into any of the three other categories. Riza T. Olchondra