Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu-Laurel Jr. said that he is looking at the total overhaul of the minimum access volume (MAV) for pork, whose rules were formulated almost three decades ago that have been exploited by a small number of accredited importers.
“We are reformulating the rules for MAV. The D.A.’s Policy and Planning Office is already on the job and they have to have an output by October this year,” said the D.A. chief at the sidelines of the 31st National Hog Convention in Pasay City on March 27. “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 quota enjoys a lower tariff of 15 percent compared to the regular rate of 25 percent. MAV allocation totaled 55,000 metric tons, with 30,000 MT set aside for meat processors to ensure lower priced processed meat.
In reviewing the MAV, Sec. Tiu Laurel said he found out that of the 130 quota holders, 47 account for 80 percent of the total allocation while 22 out of 47 have cornered 70 percent of that volume. “In reality, 22 MAV quota holders account for 55 percent of the total volume,” he said.
Worse, said the agriculture chief, many of those MAV quotas are often reused, inflating total import volume. “The sad part about this is that consumers don’t benefit from the reduced tariff,” he said.
As initially planned, Secretary Tiu-Laurel is looking to increase allocation to meat processors to 40,000 MT and the balance to be set aside for the Food Terminals Inc. to allow it to have the resources to intervene in the market to stabilize pork prices.
The D.A. has implemented a maximum suggested retail price on pork—P380 per kilo of liempo and P350 a kilo of either pigue or kasim—but compliance has so far been low. The MSRP for fresh carcass or “sabit-ulo” was fixed at P300 per kilo. (PR)