Poultry growers lament surge in chicken imports

MANILA, Philippines — The private sector is calling on the government to address import irregularities amid the continued dumping of cheap poultry imports which have affected small local producers.

The United Broilers and Raisers Association (UBRA) has asked agriculture chief William Dar to put in place a system that will monitor imports, particularly that of Customs Bonded Warehouse (CBW), as imports reached a record of 310 million kilos.

“It is so obvious that there’s irresponsibility on the part of the government. When you say customs bonded warehouse, you’re supposed to (use these imports for manufacturing input) and re-export, but DA has no data showing what is being re- exported,” UBRA president Elias Jose Inciong said.

“In the past, DA has shown no institutional commitment to address unfair trade and smuggling. They can’t even present data on customs bonded importation,” he said.

Although 30 percent of these CBW imports is allowed to be distributed to local markets, such volume has to be paid with tariffs.

Inciong maintained that there is no record that shows importers actually pay their tariffs.

“They have a mandate to develop local industries. How can you develop your industry if you don’t have data? They keep talking about competitiveness  and addressing unfair trade, smuggling when they don’t even bother to organize data,” he said.

Chicken imports consistently rose over the last seven years from just 135 million kilos in 2012 to over 300 million kilos last year.

UBRA said there is a globally recognized system to monitor technical smuggling.

Poultry raisers also want market imperfection to be addressed where farm gate prices do not directly affect consumer price.

Another is the lack of coordination between the DA and the Board of Investments with the latter allegedly giving unnecessary incentives to new poultry manufacturing applicants.

“In the past, there was an instance where BOI gave incentives on the assumption there is a huge demand-supply gap for mechanically deboned meat. BOI invited the investor on the belief there is massive shortage of MDM but they just damaged the industry,” Inciong said.