The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By DA Press Office
Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. wants to totally overhaul the minimum access volume (MAV) for pork, which were formulated 30 years ago and has been exploited by some accredited importers.
“We are reformulating the rules for MAV. The DA’s Policy and Planning Office is already on the job and they have to have an output by October this year,” Laurel said at the sidelines of the 31st National Hog Convention in Pasay City. “Our MAV rules were written in 1996 and when I read it, I found a lot of room for improvement. So, we have to revise the MAV,” he added.
Pork imported under the MAV quote enjoys a lower tariff of 15 percent compared to the regular rate of 25 percent. MAV allocation total 55,000 metric tons, with 30,000 MT set aside for meat processors to ensure lower priced processed meat.
During his review, Laurel observed that out of the 130 quota holders, 47 account or 80 percent of the total allocation, of which 22 of them have cornered 70 percent of that volume. “In reality, 22 MAV quota holders account for 55 percent of the total volume,” he said.
Worse, many of those MAV quota are reused, inflating total import volume. “The sad part about this is that consumers do not benefit from the reduced tariff,” he said.
As initially planned, Laurel is looking at increasing the allocation of meat processors to 40,000 MT and the balance for the Food Terminals Inc. to allow it to have the resources to intervene when market prices behave abnormally.
The DA has implemented a maximum suggested retail price on pork—P380 per kilo of liempo and P350 a kilo of pigue and kasim—but compliance has so far been low. The MSRP for fresh carcass or sabit ulo was fixed at P300 per kilo.