DA seeks higher tariffs on meat, coffee, other farm products
The Department of Agriculture (DA) is seeking to impose additional tariffs on several agricultural products, such as pork, chicken and coffee, to protect local producers.
The law provides for such a safeguard measure to protect domestic industries and producers from the flood of cheap imports.
In Department Order No. 15, the DA has requested the Bureau of Customs, through the Department of Finance, to levy price-based special safeguard (SSG) duties on various farm products.
“Price-based SSG measures to be imposed shall be on a shipment-by-shipment basis, depending on the difference between the actual CIF (cost, insurance and freight) price at the time of lodgment of import documents and the corresponding trigger price,” the agency said.
Under the Safeguard Measures Act, the agriculture secretary is authorized to impose SSG duties on various imported agricultural goods once import price or volume triggers are breached without the need for a formal investigation.
Based on the monitoring conducted by the DA’s Trade Remedies Office, actual CIF prices for several agricultural products have breached their respective price thresholds, making this intervention necessary.
Trigger price
Per the DA order, the trigger price for frozen meat of bovine animals (e.g. cow, buffalo, bison) and other cuts with bone in is set at P89.22 per kilogram; while that for out-quota edible offal of fowls of the species Gallus domesticus (chicken), not cut in pieces, is P93.96 per kg.
The following trigger prices will also be applied to the following products:
• P93.96 per kg for out-quota frozen wings
• P423.55 per kg for out-quota frozen livers
• P93.96 per kg for other chicken cuts and offal
• P79.63 per kg for hams, shoulders and cuts, with bone in, of swine, salted, in brine, dried or smoked
• P65.03 per kg for sausages and similar products, meat, meat offal or blood
• P259.22 per kg for other prepared and preserved meat, meat offal of chicken, other than chicken curry, in airtight containers for retail sale
• P305.73 per kg for hams and cuts of swine, prepared or preserved, in airtight containers for retail sale
• P70.50 per kg for other meat and edible meat offal
• P259.22 per kg for other prepared and preserved meat, meat offal, blood of turkeys
• P298.55 per kg for other prepared and preserved meat of turkey and chicken
• P74.21 per kg for fresh or chilled onion
• P134.11 per kg for out-quota coffee, roasted, not decaffeinated, unground, other than Arabica and Robusta; and
• P203.74 per kg for some out-quota coffee products, such as instant coffee.
