Tariff cuts on food imports junked

Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez (File photo by GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

The Committee on Tariff and Related Matters (CTRM) rejected the proposal to lower tariff rates on imports of agricultural products, pushing for supply-side interventions instead in a bid to tame inflation.

Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez said the government needed to focus on “realistic” solutions that strike a balance between consumer and producer interests.

This comes as the government struggles to curb inflation, which has been eating away the purchasing power of countless Filipinos for the past few months.

Inflation in July hit a new high in more than five years at 5.7 percent, an issue that lawmakers tried to address by pushing to lower tariffs on agricultural imports to boost supply in the market and consequently lower prices.

This, however, would hardly help at all, according to Lopez, who also heads the CTRM, an advisory board tasked to advise the President on the effects of tariffs on the country.

“Based on the report of the Tariff Commission, modifying the tariff rates will not have a significant impact on the prices of agricultural products because many of these have relatively lower tariff base already, or would have landed costs lower than local prices,” he added.

The committee met on Aug. 15 to discuss potential solutions to reduce inflation as well as the results of the public hearing on the proposed tariff modification on meat, edible offal, fish, edible vegetables, feed wheat and corn.

It was concluded, however, that the reduction on most favored nation rates would not significantly reduce prices as the agricultural products were already being sourced from Free Trade Agreement partners under lower preferential rates.

Upon consultation with stakeholders and looking into the current tariff rates, Lopez said there would be “minimum movement” in the prices if the tariff were brought down to 5 percent.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, who is also part of the CTRM, said the body would not recommend to the President the issuance of an executive order that would reduce the import duties on the food items.

In a statement sent by the DTI, Piñol was quoted as saying that his department was amending the Fisheries Administrative Order No. 195 “to allow the sale of imported fish in wet markets.”

Piñol has also ordered the importation of about 17,000 metric tons of round scad (galunggong) at the normal tariff rate in a bid to address the rising prices of the fish variety in the market.

He said meat importers were ordered to fast-track their importation in time for the lean months.

DTI said that DA also requested the Bureau of Customs to temporarily suspend of the imposition of Special Safeguard Measures on chicken meat imports.

In the case of pork supply, Piñol has directed minimum access volume certificate holders to use their allocations or risk these being canceled, after finding out that certificate holders use up only 50 percent of their allocations.