May 24, 2004

 

 

Imports Of 10 Million Kilos Of Chicken Approved To Ease Shortage In Philippines

 

The Department of Agriculture will allow the entry of some 10 million kilograms of imported chicken that will temporarily be exempted from the additional special safeguard price duty in the Philippines.

 

The government is seeking to increase the local supply of chicken and ease the escalating prices in the market by allowing chicken imports outside or in excess of the minimum access volume (MAV) ceilings.

 

Agriculture Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo Jr. said Friday that there would be a temporary suspension of Republic Act No. 8800 or the Safeguard Measures Act which says that imported chicken should come in at no less than P94 a kilo.

 

"If we import now, the landed price of chicken will be at P70 to P74 a kilo of chicken. That is competitive but there is what we call the trigger price, this would be temporarily lifted," Lorenzo said in an interview.

 

He said the allocation of five million kilos would be done on a "first-come, first-served" basis to those who are not currently holding any MAV certificate beginning immediately until August.

 

MAV is the volume of products that local traders may bring at lower tariffs. Imported chicken within and over the MAV allocated volumes are slapped a 40-percent tariff. Local traders have not fully availed themselves of the 22,968 metric tons of MAV volumes.

 

The local poultry raisers, on the other hand, said they have not been consulted by the DA in setting these import volumes.

 

United Broiler Raisers Association (UBRA) president Gregorio San Diego said in an interview that they were taken aback by the DA's declaration since no agreement has been reached since their last meeting on Thursday morning. UBRA is the association of backyard raisers.

 

According to Philippine Association of Broiler Integrators Inc. (PABI) spokesperson Ruben Pascual, they have warned the DA against arbitrarily making a decision on the imports since the industry was reeling from high production costs due to the escalating price of feeds.

 

"Our production cost is at about P60 to P65 due to the high feeds costs but our farmgate price is at only P69 to P70 a kilo. It is at the wet markets that retail prices are moving up," UBRA's San Diego explained.

 

San Diego noted that the high cost of corn and soybean--the main ingredients in feed production--have risen to P12 and P23 a kilo, respectively, as compared to year-ago levels of P8 and P12.