Turkish gov’t to cooperate on flour probe

MANILA, Philippines - The Turkish government is willing to present its position on the Philippine government’s investigation of allegations of dumping of Turkish flour citing that their flour shipments here are not the same as those being sold in their country.

“We are going to supply our defense to the authorities of the Philippines and in the end, we sincerely and truly believe that the Philippine authorities will conclude and decide on what is fair,” Turkish Flour, Yeast and Ingredients Promotion Group chairman Turgay Unlu told reporters.

He said that while they are not against the investigation, it is unfair for Turkish exporters as there is no truth to the claims that they are dumping or exporting Turkish flour at prices lower than their domestic market’s cost.

This, as Turkey which exports flour to 117 countries, ships the commodity according to the requirements of a particular market.

“The product, the wheat flour we produce for Philippines, we do not produce it for Turkey. The specs are definitely different that is why you cannot compare apple with another fruit,” Unlu said.

“The situation is not reasonable right now because we cannot tell you any kind of prices because we do not have that kind of wheat flour back in Turkey... We just produce it for Philippines and the price is just for Philippine pesos,” he said further.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is conducting its preliminary investigation following a petition filed by the Philippine Association of Flour Millers, Inc. (PAFMIL) to raise the duty on imported flour to 20 percent from the current seven percent, as the group claimed that Turkish flour millers are bringing their flour here at dumping prices.

Bakers groups such as the Filipino-Chinese Bakery Association Inc, Philippine Baking Industry Group and Philippine Federation of Bakery Association, Inc. announced last week that they will be raising the price of Pinoy Tasty to P40 from P37 per loaf, and the price of Pinoy Pan de sal to P24 from P22.50 per pack of 10, starting August 20, due to the non-availability of the low-priced imported flour with the duty on shipments from overseas seen to go up.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said however, there should be no price increase as there are shipments of Turkish flour still expected to arrive in the country.

Ernesto Chua, president of flour importer Malabon Longlife Trading Corp. said in the same event that while they still have shipments of Turkish flour until the first two weeks of September, they expect that a provisional increase in duty of imports may be in place by that time which would no longer make them competitive.

He said local hard flour costs P880 to P940 per 25-kilogram bag, while the imported hard flour from Turkey is priced between P720 to P750.

For soft flour, he said the locally produced variant is priced between P730 and P750 per bag, while those imported from Turkey costs P620 to P630 per bag.