COLLECTIONS of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) from duties on rice imports fell by 23.1 percent as of mid-February, the Department of Finance (DOF) reported Monday.
Data released by the DOF showed that BOC collections from rice imports of private traders fell to P1.71 billion from Jan. 1 to Feb. 14 this year from the P2.22 billion in 2018.
President Rodrigo Duterte in February 2019 signed the Rice Tariffication Law, which liberalized the entry of imported rice into the Philippines.
Effective March 2019, the Philippines allowed the unlimited importation of rice as long as traders secure a phytosanitary permit from the Bureau of Plant Industry and pay the 35 percent tariff for shipments from neighbors in Southeast Asia.
According to the DOF, the BOC recorded a total of 2019,320 metric tons (MT) of rice from Jan. 1 to Feb. 14 this year.
This is 61.8 percent lower than the 759,810 MT brought into the country during the same period in 2019, when the tariffication law was not yet in effect.
āBOC collections from rice imports of private traders since the enactment of RA 11203 in March 2019 will benefit palay growers as such revenues are earmarked for the annual P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund,ā the DOF said.
The RCEF was mandated to help rice farmers in the face of unrestricted flow of imported rice into the country. The P10-billion fund includes P5 billion for farm mechanization, and P3 billion to procure seedlings.(GMA News)
