Congress OKs incentives for agri equipment imports

Congress approved yesterday certain amendments to the Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) including the extension of tax holidays and other incentives to importers of agriculture and fishery machine and equipment until 2015.

"The (amended) law should help the farming and fishing sectors to improve their productivity and competitiveness under the new global regime," Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., chairman of the Senate committee on agriculture and concurrent chairman of the bicameral Congressional Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization (COCAFM), said.

The amended measure extends the effectivity of tax incentives to agribusiness enterprises and the mandated funding support for AFMA’s implementation until 2015 or 10 years beyond its original lifespan.

Section 109 of AFMA or Republic Act 8435 as amended provides that agribusiness companies duly certified by the Department of Finance (DOF) and the Board of Investments will until 2015 enjoy the privilege of not paying tariffs and duties for their imports of modernized machines and equipment.

Section 12 of AFMA was also amended to ensure that the Department of Agriculture (DA) gets guaranteed allocation of P17 billion yearly for the duration of the law.

The P17-billion budget for AFMA should be on top of the regular DA budget and will not be subjected to any mandatory reserves to be imposed by the Cabinet.

The extension of AFMA, according to Magsaysay is required for the badly-neglected agriculture sector to strengthen its footing especially with global trade liberalization.

AFMA which was approved and implemented in 1997, was considered a flop because of Congress’ failure to put money into the program.

Previously, DA Undersecretary Arsenio Balisacan said that during the entire life of AFMA, huge amounts were appropriated for the program, but actual releases were inadequate to meet the department’s objectives.

"AFMA was a good law, but the program hardly took off because there just wasn’t enough financing," Balisacan said, adding hardly 50 percent of appropriated funds were released.