The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) said government will continue to lose P6 billion in revenues annually if reduced tariff on mechanically deboned meat (MDM) of chicken and turkey is extended.
In appealing to reject the petition of meat process for the extension of the reduced tariff, SINAG said in a statement yesterday maintaining at 5 percent instead of reverting the tariff on MDM to 40 percent next year would deprive the government funds to support the country’s economic recovery and help people cope with the current economic crisis.
The group said lower tariff did not significantly reduce the retail prices of canned and processed meats.
SINAG said reverting the tariff to 40 percent would have negligible impact on prices of meat products.
It said at 20 percent inclusion rate which is the industry standard, a regular 100 mg luncheon meat will reflect an increase of P0.53 or from P1.57 to P2.10 per can.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (PAMPI) has reiterated its request to increase the suggested retail price (SRP) of meat products.
Jerome Ong, vice president of PAMPI, said in a radio interview yesterday the cost of other inputs in meat processing such as fuel, electricity, tin can and labor costs have gone up.
Ong said both locally sourced and imported MDM materials have been affected especially with the weaker peso against the US dollar.
PAMPI said for this year, production cost went up by over 20 percent but the group hopes to recover just 10 percent of the additional production cost through the new SRP.
“What we really need is an increase of P3 to P4 per can. However, what we sought from the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) is just a P1.50 to P2 increase as we also don’t want to pass all of the increased costs to consumers alone,” Ong said.
Executive Order (EO) 123 issued January 2021 modified the rates of import duty on certain agricultural products under section 1611 of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.
Under EO 123, tariff rates of MDM of chicken and turkey were reduced to 5 percent until Dec. 31, 2022 from the previous 40 percent. PAMPI has a pending request to extend this until 2023.
Data from the Bureau of Animal Industry showed as of September, 177,110,189 kilograms (kg) of imported MDM chicken and 248,340 kg of MDM turkey, entered the country.
For the similar period, Brazil provided most of the MDM chicken at 115,621,178 kg equivalent to 65.2 percent while Canada provided most of MDM turkey at 221,340 kg equal to 89 percent.
