April 22, 2008

Cheaper local corn may minimise Philippines' corn imports

The Philippines will reduce its corn importation this year from the 131,800 million tonnes (MT) in 2007 as the government bats for cheaper corn amid escalating corn price in the world market.

An industry official states the country's corn import volume may not even reach half of the 2007 import volume as local corn currently pegs at P13 to P13.50 per kilo while landed price of imported corn is hitting P15 per kilo.

The official adds imported corn is becoming more expensive as import duty within Minimum Access Volume (MAV) is at 30 percent and 55 percent outside MAV.

The country has already reduced its corn importation by 49 percent in 2007 from 258,563 MT in 2006. The past years also showed low volume imports. In 2004, only 9,496 MT of corn was imported and was only increased to 57,750 MT in 2005 which is still low compared to the 2007 volume.

Officials say a negative implication of low corn importation indicates the country's slower livestock growth as manifested in a prevailing tightening of supply of pork.

Philippine Association of Feed Millers records show that feed production in the country rose to 8.5 million MT in 2007, up from eight million MT in 2006 but remains uncertain if it can sustain its growth this year.

Meanwhile, soymeal imports came heavily at 1.734 million MT, up from 1.595 million MT in 2006. Imports came mostly from Argentina (1.17 million MT) and the United States (483,576 MT).

Soy imports also rose slightly to 128,452 MT in 2007 from 122,890 MT in 2006 with origin from the United States-Gulf (79,231 MT) and Canada (38,881 MT).

The country also imported less feed wheat in 2007 which was at 399,334 MT, less than half from 963,830 MT in 2006. All imported feed wheat in 2007 came from China.

If there are other crops that may substitute for corn, this must be cassava which is available locally or in pellet form from Thailand, according to the official.

In an aim to boost corn production, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has introduced an inter-planting white corn with coconut trees programme on 100,000 hectares. The project puts DA's plan on track to reach corn production at 7.4 million MT, of which 2.88 million MT for white corn and 4.5 million MT for yellow corn. This will be a 10.44 percent growth from last year¡¯s 6.7 million MT output.