Prices of processed meat products seen to rise

Manila, Philippines - Prices of processed meat are bound to increase if the tariff on meat offals, particularly pork skin, fat and rind, is raised, a leader of the industry said yesterday.

Francisco Buencamino, executive director of the Philippine Association of Meat Processors of the Philippines Inc. (PAMPI), said they are against a proposal to increase the import for offals to 40 percent.

Buencamino noted that the government “is only protecting the interest of the hog raisers. They’re supposed to look at things without bias. What about the Filipino consumers?”

Buencamino explained that increasing the import duty would translate to a 15- percent increase in the price of offals and processed meats sold in wet markets.

According to the PAMPI official, “they are forcing the Filipino consumers to buy only their [hog raisers] products. I think that the government should be more balance on the issue of increasing the tariff on offal, and be more sensitive to the concerns of the Filipino consumers.”

Meat processors, who use and import offals, want the tariff maintained at five percent.

The local pork industry has been complaining that the increasing imports of offals aggravated by technical smuggling activities involving premium pork cuts, is slowly killing the local industry.

Continued low demand for pork, coupled by increasing imports that find their way to wet markets has resulted in a 0.59 percent growth for the livestock sector in the first quarter of this year.

Meat processors have been saying that local hog producers are unable to supply them with the necessary volume and quality of offals they need for production.

PAMPI is hoping to present its case during a series of public hearings to be conducted on the proposed tariff increase.