Special duties fund seen growing faster

MANILA, Philippines — The earmarked fund for the development of local industries affected by imports is likely to increase as the government imposes additional duties on new products, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said.

Tiu Laurel told The STAR that he decided to impose special safeguard duties (SSG) on four new agricultural products because the trigger prices have been breached.

Last week, he issued Department Order (DO) 20 requesting the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to continue imposing SSG on existing agricultural commodities and apply the trade measure on four new products.

Under the order, the agriculture chief requested the imposition of price-based SSG on pork shoulder and ham with bone in, unground roasted coffee other than Arabica and Robusta varieties, sausages and similar products based on meat offal and other preserved and prepared chicken meat offal and blood other than chicken curry in airtight containers for retail sale.

“The trigger prices of these (products) under the (World Trade Organization) agreements have been triggered. We will use the collected duties for the competitiveness enhancement measures fund (CEMF) to help the local industry affected,” Tiu Laurel said.

The agriculture chief was referring to the CEMF, an earmarked fund created under Republic Act 8800 or the Safeguards Measures Act that pools all SSG collected and allocates a portion of it for the development of domestic industries affected by imports.

SSG is a trade measure that allows the government to slap and collect additional duties on eligible imported goods whose costs fall below an established trigger price, to temper the possible harm it could cause to local industries.

Tiu Laurel also pointed out he had to remove mechanically deboned meat (MDM) of chicken from the imposition of SSG to prevent a spike in retail prices of processed meat products. Chicken MDM is a vital raw ingredient used by meat processors to manufacture items like meat loaf and hotdogs.

Meat Importers and Traders Association president emeritus Jesus Cham told The STAR that an imposition of SSG on chicken MDM could impact meat processors “severely” as the landed costs of the imported raw material would go up.

The current balance of CEMF at the end of last year stood at P4.54 billion, about P1.2 billion higher than the P3.343 billion recorded balance in end-2022, based on government budget documents.

The DA has been undertaking various information campaign to educate concerned agriculture industry players on how they can tap the grants funded by the CEMF to improve their competitiveness.