Manufacturers urge more test facilities for cement and steel

Domestic manufacturers yesterday strongly urged the Department of Trade and Industry to put up or accredit more testing facilities to facilitate tests and release of imported cement and steel products upon entry into the country.

Jesus L. Arranza, chairman of the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI), and Roberto Cola, president of the Philippine Iron and Steel Institute, said this as the DTI Consumer and Welfare Protection Group is set to release the revised department administrative orders (DAO) on the inspection and monitoring of standards of imported steel and cement, which are under mandatory standards.

Cola said that testing of products under mandatory standards, including steel and cement, is solely conducted by the Metals Industry Research Development Center of the Department of Science and Technology because the DTI refused to accredit other private certifying agencies.

“To facilitate test results, the DTI should accredit more certifying agencies,” both officials said.

Arranza has urged DTI to be “more reliable where testing can be done with dispatch.”

Cola said that the results of the 28day mega Pascal strength of cement can already be done after 7 days, but that is not yet the complete test.

In the case of steel, local manufacturers conduct tests every 20 to 30 minutes of their operation and test results are done within 15 minutes.

The proposed revised DAO is seeking to implement a pre-shipment certification system where cement and steel products have to be certified that they met the safety and quality standards at the port of entry. The shipment will also undergo post-shipment inspection upon arrival, but this will no longer hold the product at the port but rather the product is allowed to be released and distributed to the public the sample testing is still undergoing.

“We are not opposed to the preshipment, but we cannot tolerate products under mandatory testing to be released upon arrival at the ports without complete test results,” Arranza reiterated.

Both officials also said that this policy should apply to all imports, whether the importer is also a local manufacturer or a pure trader.

Pure traders, however, have opposed to what the local manufacturers want to happen to wait for the complete results because these normally take time and they cannot afford to spend for warehousing cost of their imports.

To ensure tests do not drag, manufacturers have proposed for a timetable to be specified under the implementing rules and regulations of the DAO, within which the complete results are made available or secured.

“It is harder to catch these items because they’ve been distributed already if the results would later show that they were substandard,” Arranza said stressing that safety cannot be sacrificed in favor of trade facilitation.

Cola cited their investigation after the earthquake in Bohol and the Typhoon Yolanda in Leyte showing structural defects of houses and buildings because the steel and rebars used were substandard.

They also cited a position approved by the Philippine Product Safety and Quality Foundation (PPSQF) Board during their meeting on Sept. 14, 2017 not to allow the release of products with mandatory safety standards to be released when the testing for safety has not been completed.

PPSQF also cited the results of a nine-country survey revealing hat ASEAN economies inspect steel and cement imports at port of entry, and do not rely on pre-shipment inspections done in other countries.

Accordingly, the report which was also communicated to the DTI, showed that neighboring economies in ASEAN, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei, all had policies requiring the inspection and testing of cement at the ports of entry.

Other Asian economies, including Taiwan, Australia and Japan, implement similar guidelines for these construction materials.