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Friday, March 29, 2024

Government starts probe on rice imports

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The Agriculture Department said Monday it launched the preliminary process of investigation on the imposition of general safeguards duty on rice imports.

“We have started investigations and we expect to complete them by end of September or early October,” said Agriculture Secretary William Dar.

The imposition of safeguard duty on rice imports is one of the measures expected to help stabilize the supply and price of rice.

A safeguard investigation seeks to determine whether the increased importation of a product is causing, or is threatening to cause, serious injury to a domestic industry.

Data from the department showed the Philippines could only produce 93 percent of the total national rice requirement and had to import the remaining 7 percent.

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“We have to holistically and systematically protect the consuming public and much more, our small farmers. So, I have taken the necessary steps and the direction where we will enforce legal measures during these times when we have greatly exceeded the volume needed to fill up the slack in national rice supply, most particularly in Metro Manila and major urban rice consumption centers,” Dar said.

The measure is in line with Republic Act 8752 (Anti-Dumping Act of 1999) where the government can impose anti-dumping duties on imports of any product, including rice and other basic food items that are priced way below the current fair market value.

Another option is to impose stringent sanitary and phytosanitary and inspection measures of rice imports.

Dar said that to date, 2.4 million metric tons of rice were imported which were beyond what the country needed.

“We will protect our small farmers by not allowing additional imports especially this main harvest season. We want them to benefit from the respectable farmgate prices of palay set by the government through the National Food Authority,” Dar said.

The World Trade Organization earlier announced it had initiated the preliminary safeguard investigation on rice as requested by the Philippines.

From the request filed by the Philippines,  the document alleged that the continued increase in rice imports occurred alongside the drop in farmgate prices of palay which adversely affected the income of farmers.

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