Flour millers asked the government to reduce tariffs on imported ingredients for bread production to help stabilize the price of local bread.
Philippine Association of Flour Millers Inc. executive-director Ric Pinca said the government has the authority to bring down duties on bakery ingredients as wheat imports are already duty-free.
“So it is for the best interest of everybody if the government could lessen, if not suspend, duties or tariffs on imported ingredients,” Pinca said at the regular Pandesal Forum at Kamuning Bakery Café in Quezon City.
He said they could not determine if prices of flour might spike up again, as world supply was declining steadily over the last few months because of circumstantial factors like the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, India’s trade ban and the severe drought in major wheat-producing countries.
Pinca said the price of imported yeast for baking was on an uptrend. Tariffs on imported yeast is about 10 percent or more, he said.
