Bureau of Customs deputy commissioner Ray Allas said that all shipments of agricultural products from China which they have seized have no import permits from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, indicating that they were all smuggled.
Allas said that importers usually resort to misdeclaration to avoid the requirement of securing prior import permit to bring into the country agricultural products.
Allas cited yesterday’s apprehension of six container vans of assorted fruits and vegetables from China with an estimated value of some P3.5 million at the Manila International Container Port (MICP) in North Harbor.
MICP district collector Rey Nicolas identified those involved in the illegal shipments as Unicomm Ingredients, Oriental Fresh Connections, Armancal Enterprises and Jocarmark Trading.
Oriental Fresh Connections imposed 40-footer container van of pears and quinces while Jocarmark Trading brought in two 40-footer container vans of fresh onions. Armancal Enterprises had two 40-footer container vans of garlic and Unicomm, a 20-footer container van of pastry base.
A total of 24 40-footer container vans of ceramic tiles, which were declared by Armancal Enterprises as wood paving blocks to avoid payment of safeguard duty of P4.50 per kilo, formed part of the seized illegal shipments.
Allas said had the shipments been released from China on the basis of what their importers have declared, the government would have lost millions of pesos in revenues.
The bureau, according to Allas, has intensified its campaign against all forms of smuggling at the piers as shown by the number of recent apprehensions of illegal shipments.
"If we don’t regulate importations of agricultural and industrial products, our industries will die a natural death because they cannot possibly compete with the cheap products coming from China," Allas added.