Turkey looks to diversify as PH loses taste for flour

Still reeling from the antidumping duties the Philippine government slapped on their flour products beginning 2014, Turkish firms are looking to diversify the portfolio of products they are currently exporting here.

“We are telling our exporters that we need to diversify our trade materials here. We can’t rely on just one product and we’re hoping that there would be more interest from both sides (to continue trade),” Turkish Ambassador to the Philippines Esra Cankorur said in a briefing Thursday night.

She said there are other products Turkey could bring to the Philippines, including textile, rice and even confectionery or the high-value flour.

She said the firms could also offer their expertise and services related to the construction industry. She said Turkey has the second largest construction industry in the world.

Prior to the imposition of the antidumping duties, a kind of measure slapped on in-demand imported products to protect the domestic industry, about 60 percent of Turkey’s exports to the Philippines comprised of wheat flour, Cankorur said.

The Turkish envoy said the country’s exports to the Philippines dropped by almost 20 percent to $252 million in 2014 from the $314 million recorded the previous year. In 2015, exports were estimated to be more than $200 million only, she said.

The decline reflected the drop in the volume of flour exported by Turkish firms as Philippine importers turned to alternative sources such as Vietnam and Indonesia. Local flour millers have also ramped up their respective production capacities.

The Philippine Tariff Commission had ordered in 2014 the imposition of additional duties ranging from 2.87 percent to 16.19 percent for Turkish flour imports. The said duties, which covered 13 Turkish exporters, would be implemented within a five-year period.

Prices of flour in the country have gone down to their lowest levels in about a decade, according to Ernesto Chua, chair of the Philippine-Turkish Business Council.

About two months ago, local retail prices of hard flour dropped to about P660 to P850 for a 25-kilogram bag from a high of P920 a bag. Prices of soft flour, meanwhile, is now about P450 to P600 a bag from a high of P750 a bag.

Chua said the decline was due to a huge drop in global wheat prices, which started last year.

Bread manufacturers, however, have not announced any new price cuts so far to reflect this drop.