The Trade department on Thursday called for the urgent importation of some 200,000 metric tons of sugar subject to 35 percent tariff to ease the burden on consumers from the increasing cost of commodities and allow industries to cope with rising inflation.
In other developments:
• Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III on Thursday ordered the Bureau of Customs to keep a closer watch on the entry of smuggled rice and sugar and speed up the auction of seized stocks.
Dominguez said given the tight domestic supply of both rice and sugar, unscrupulous traders would naturally sneak more of those goods into the country without paying taxes.
• The Bureau of Customs said Thursday it had confiscated 45 container vans containing more than P39 million worth of smuggled sugar at the Port of Manila
District Collector Erastus Austria said the shipment consignee, Red Star Rising Corp., failed to file the entry within the prescribed period, allowing Customs to forfeit the sugar in favor of the government.
Trade secretary Ramon Lopez said the proposed tariffication system will not be limited to traders but those who seek to import will be allowed to do so given a valid reason for bringing in the goods.
He said the tariffication will be similar to the proposed tariffication on rice.
“We will probably devise a system, assuming there will be a quota system, to make sure that imports will not flood the market to the detriment of farmers. We have to develop a fair system on how to allocate the quota,” Lopez said.
It will be the Sugar Regulatory Administration that will approve the sugar importation under a quota system minus the fees that usually come with sugar imports.
The price of local sugar now ranges from P2,400 to P2,900 per 50-kilogram bag, while the landed cost of imported sugar is P2,100 to P2,200 per bag.
Lopez said that could have been much lower at P1,300 to P1,400 per bag if only because of the set of fees collected by the SRA.
His proposal has the support of the economic managers, although he is yet to speak with the SRA.
“This has general acceptance and, of course, it is a broad concept, so there will be discussions on how do we move forward,” Lopez said.
“The principle is one that should result in lower cost of imported sugar, but being sensitive also to the price so as not to displace sugar producers. We have to be careful with that.”
Lopez said the government would have to ensure that the importation scheme would not favor any sector.
Price of refined sugar is P65 to 67 per kilogram in neighborhood stores, while washed and raw sugar are priced lower at P56 to P60 per kilogram.
The Philippines’ sugar production is estimated to decline by 8 percent to 2.3 million metric tons from 2.5 million MT in the crop year 2017-2018 due to weather disturbances. With Vito Barcelo