DBCC hikes Customs target to P300 B in ’09

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has been tasked to collect P300.059 billion for next year or P46.059 billion more than its collection target for 2008.

The Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC) has given Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales the assignment to amass 18.1 percent more of the BOC’s assigned target of P254 billion this year.

The BOC said the 2009 figure was based on assumptions the foreign exchange (forex) rate would be at P42 per US dollar; that the price of oil per barrel would be P115; and that there would average a 10-percent growth  in the country’s imports from $63.313 billion to $69.644 billion next year.

When the DBCC pegged the BOC’s target collection for year 2008, it based the forex rate at P47 to a dollar and that the price of a barrel of oil at $62.

Morales said the agency was supposed to be assigned  a P305-billion collection target but he appealed and requested that the amount be reduced. “P300 billion is more manageable.”

He admitted that compared to this year’s aim “the figure is a bit high but I told them that we will do that we can to meet the target.”

“As of now, we will consider it our fighting target,” he said.

For this year’s collections, Morales expressed confidence the agency will surpass its P254 billion goal because of the increased prices of oil in the world market and with the collection of windfall revenue from value-added tax (VAT) on oil.

From April to July this year, the BOC has been able to surpass its monthly collection targets. — Evelyn Z. Macairan