Unchecked incidence of smuggling and the proliferation of substandard glass pulled down the sales of the country’s biggest flat glass manufacturer—Pioneer Float Glass Manufacturing Inc. by 40 percent to 50 percent in 2019.
Pioneer president and chief executive Paul Vincent Go said almost all kinds of glass variants suffered from slowdown despite the increased compliance to the Build, Build, Build program of the government.
“We’re in the same predicament as that of steel. There are a lot of imported glass that are substandard and, in fact, do not pay the proper taxes,” he said.
He said imported glass items not up to Philippine standards were threatening to ruin the local glass manufacturing industry.
Go said despite the safeguard measures, many importers could still circumvent the law and had resorted to undervalue their imports—another form of technical smuggling.