DTI aims to release new SRPs this month

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) aims to release suggested retail prices (SRPs) for basic necessities and prime commodities (BNPCs) this month as it continues to evaluate price increase requests from manufacturers.

“We said last time that in January, we will seriously look at the requests (for price increases). There are notices filed by manufacturers,” Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual, speaking partly in Filipino, told reporters yesterday. “The work is ongoing with our team in the Consumer Protection Group.”

Pascual said the task is not as easy as marking up from old prices. He explained that prices of inputs in the international market keep on moving as in the case of petroleum and wheat prices, which have been dropping.

The DTI has been monitoring the prices of raw materials since December as it assess the requests or notices of adjustment in its SRPs for BNPCs.

“On the manufactured products covered by the SRP, we are still discussing it,” he said. “Manufacturers are reviewing their products. They are the ones deciding which products they will include in the SRP list.”

While noting that some manufacturers intend to include the higher end of their product line in the price adjustment, Pascual said the DTI is interested in releasing SRPs for “products that are normally or usually consumed by the mass base of our consumers.”

For now, the DTI is in discussions with manufacturers and asking them for additional information so that the department can appropriately assess the need for price increases.

The DTI chief said the new SRP list will likely be released after he comes back from his trip to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum.

“I’ll be back to the office on the 23rd (of January). Hopefully, by that time, the outlook for the commodity prices is clear,” he said.

“Our last published SRP was (in) August, and we have received (price increase requests) over that period from the time we published the last one,” Pascual said earlier, adding that they are still in the process of evaluating requests.

In November, Pascual said about 25 percent or 55 stock keeping units (SKUs) out of 218 SKUs categorized as BNPCs may see possible price increases.

This covers 15 manufacturers requesting price adjustments for 25 food SKUs and 29 non-food SKUs.

“The increase is due to the high cost of imported and local materials, packaging materials and overhead charges,” the DTI said previously.

In its last SRP bulletin issued in August 2022, the DTI reported a 3.29-percent to 10-percent increase in SRPs of 67 SKUs because of the rising prices of raw materials and packaging and other costs globally.