THE United Broiler Raisers Association (Ubra) urged the government to exclude poultry products from the minimum access volume (MAV) mechanism to enable the implementation of special safeguard (SSG) duties.
Ubra Chairman Elias Jose Inciong called on the Department of Agriculture (DA) to remove poultry products from the list of farm goods covered by the MAV scheme, since duties levied for in-quota and out-quota shipments are now equal.
‘The MAV for chicken should no longer exist based on our commitments to the World Trade Organization [WTO] because in 2005, the previous 50 percent levied on [shipments] outside the MAV and 40 percent in-quota became equal,’ he said in a radio interview on Monday.
Inciong explained that excluding poultry from the MAV mechanism will enable shipments to be imposed with SSG, which is a trade mechanism that a country can levy on imports that fall below a trigger price.
‘Even though the tariff rates on chicken [for in-quota and out-quota] are equal, they can avoid the trade remedy called special safeguard duties that can reach P6 to P10 per kilo,’ he added.
The SSG forms part of the Competitiveness Enhancement Measures Fund (CEMF), aimed at boosting domestic industries injured by increased imports. The fund is composed of 50 percent of revenues collected from fees, charges, and safeguard duties on imported goods.
Industry sources said the CEMF consists mostly of SSG duties collected from coffee and poultry imports.
While Inciong welcomed the government’s move to revise the rules governing the MAV, he maintained that poultry should be excluded from the measure.
‘That’s a positive development if the DA is really changing the rules because it means they see that a few are benefiting [from it] and the system is being manipulated,’ he said. The government recently revised the rules for implementing the MAV mechanism, citing the need for transparency and ‘equitable stakeholder participation in the agricultural sector.’
Among the revisions were the distribution of the quota through a ‘systematic distribution procedure’ that allocates volumes to qualified participants through a raffle-based system.
A midyear redistribution process will be conducted during the first week of June to reallocate surrendered and reverted quotas.