Govt to bolster sugar output in 5 years

The government plans to strengthen the sugar industry by increasing output within the next five years in preparation for the zero tariff regime in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations by 2015.

“I believe we now have the confidence of small farmers. They’re willing to work and cooperate with the plan of the government to strengthen the sector and increase productivity…. in the face of a unified tariff system by 2015,” Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala told reporters Tuesday.

He said he had set a meeting on Aug. 5 “to tackle the problem of sugar next year.”

“We want to see to it that we will not encounter the same problems we had this year,” he said.

The government plans to bring back sugar sufficiency next year.

The Agriculture Department has approved the importation of 150,000 metric tons of sugar for delivery before Sept. 30.

The documents allowing the use of the tax expenditure scheme for the proposed importation is now with the Finance Department.

The additional imports are expected to beef up the country’s sugar supply and prevent price spikes caused by the expected delay in milling due to poor cane quality.

Sugar production for crop year ending Aug. 31 is estimated to reach 1.97 million MT from a previous estimate of 2.18 million MT.

The government said major tariff cuts on the hog and poultry industries would be beneficial to the Philippine economy.

An Agriculture official earlier said the Philippines might be in a “better position” to export excess produce in the future, like yellow corn, to its Asean neighbors.

The full implementation on Jan. 1 of the Common Effective Preferential Tariff scheme in the Asean Free Trade Area will set the stage for the regional trade bloc called Asean Economic Community by 2015.

Afta is a potential market of close to 600 million people—the world’s largest market next to China and India.

The Philippines is a major producer of pork meat in the region.

The CEPT scheme is the main implementing arrangement among Asean member-states. It will implement a staggered reduction in intra-regional tariffs and remove non-tariff barriers in Southeast Asia over a 10-year period beginning 1993.

Tariffs on Asean-manufactured goods and agricultural products have been progressively reduced over a specific period to a range of zero to 5 percent, clearing the way to the conversion of the region into a single free trade area to by 2015. –Othel V. Campos, Manila Standard Today