Economic managers, senators agree on adjustments for pork tariffs, volume

The members of Duterte's economic team and Senate on Wednesday agreed to modify the tariff rates for imported pork products under the Executive Order (EO) No. 28, which was signed to address pork supply issues.

In discussions with the Senate, economic team members and Agriculture Chief William Dar said they "recommended that the tariff rates in EO 128 be adjusted to 10% in-quota and 20% for out-quota for the first three months; and 15% in-quota and 25% for out-quota for the remaining nine months."

Both parties also agreed that the minimum access volume (MAV) should be dropped from 404,000 metric tons (MT) to 254,210 MT. 

The Agriculture chief will submit the recommendation of revised pork import tariffs to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board, who will then give its final recommendation to the Office of the President.

Dar said the modifications in the EO was meant to prevent the "inflationary impact on Filipino consumers" due to the decrease in pork supply.

“This is an urgent short-term measure. We are still aggressively taking steps to help the domestic industry recover from ASF. These include the 'Bantay ASF sa Barangay' and its twin hog repopulation program," Dar said in a statement.

"The Land Bank of the Philippines and Development Bank of the Philippines are setting aside P30 billion and P12 billion, respectively, to lend to commercial swine raisers. But these long-term measures take time. We need an immediate strategy to temper the current high pork price situation,” Dar added.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed EO 128 to reduce the tariff rates to 5% to 20% from 30% to 40% for a year amid the negative effects of African Swine Fever on pork supply.

But senators previously asked for the revocation of the said EO, as reducing tariff rates would adversely affect local hog raisers. —NB, GMA News