US allows 145,235 MT raw sugar export quota for Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has been allowed to export 145,235 metric tons raw value (MTRV) of raw cane sugar at lower tariff rate to the United States for the second straight fiscal year, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said.

The Philippines secured the third largest allocation from the USTR for fiscal year 2025, which runs from Oct. 1 until Sept. 30, 2025, behind Dominican Republic (189,343 MTRV) and Brazil (155,993 MTRV).

This is the second straight fiscal year that the country was given a 145,235 MT raw sugar export quota (TRQ) by the US under its tariff rate quota system.

The TRQ system allows certain countries to export specific quantities of a product to the US at a relatively low tariff.

The Philippines earlier opted not to serve the initial quota allocation in the current fiscal year 2024 due to concerns on domestic sugarcane production.

But the government sought a reallocation from the US in November last year to flush out some of the country’s raw sugar stocks to lift farm-gate prices of sugarcane and maintain a profitable margin for planters.

The US granted the Philippines’ request and gave it a reallocated quota of 25,300 MTRV raw sugar. The government plans to fulfill the reallocated quota in the coming weeks before the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

The Philippines has not exported a single volume of raw sugar to the US in the past two crop years (2021-2022 and 2022-2023) due to domestic output shortfall.

The US has been the longest trade partner of the Philippines when it comes to sugar, dating back to 1796. It has been the country’s priority market when it comes to raw sugar exports.

In a related development, the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) board issued Sugar Order (SO) 3 that approved the export of 25,300 MTRV of raw sugar to the US under its TRQ system.

The SO was signed by Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., who chairs the SRA board, SRA Administrator and CEO Pablo Luis Azcona, board members David Sanson and Mitzi Mangwag as well as Agriculture Undersecretary Roger Navarro as alternate ex-officio chairman.

The SO would take effect three days after it was filed with the Office of the National Registrar at UP Law Center last July 26.

The STAR broke the story earlier that the government was fast-tracking the export of raw sugar to the US to raise farm-gate prices of domestic raw sugar by siphoning off some of the country’s supply amid a drop in market demand.