Zubiri seeks US tariff-rate quota conversion to help local sugar industry

SENATE Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri has introduced Senate Resolution 156 urging the Department of Agriculture and the Sugar Regulatory Administration to mitigate the current situation of the country’s sugar industry by converting the United States tariff- rate quota ( TRQ) allocations of local industrial consumers.

Zubiri said climate change is taking its toll on the Philippine sugar industry, and had affected the planting and milling seasons of sugar, as well as the domestic production.

He added that the negative effect of climate change on the Philippine sugar industry was exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon this year, contributing to the low domestic production of sugar.

Annual Philippine consumption of sugar is estimated at 2.4 metric tons (MT), while the projected domestic production of sugar this year is at 2.09 MT. The allocation for the US TRQ also called as the “A” sugar is 5 percent of the Philippines’ domestic production, which is equivalent to 105,000 metric tons.

The majority leader pointed out that if we avail of the US TRQ, this would leave us with 1.9 MT available for domestic consumption and short of more than 400,000 MT, which the country has to import to fill the domestic consumption.

Zubiri said the current domestic price of sugar at Pl, 500 per bag and Philippine export to the US under the TRQ at Pl, 100 per bag would result in the domestic consumers subsidizing the price of sugar export to the US.

He noted that this would not be the first time that the Philippines would not avail of the US TRQ because of lower domestic production of sugar. “There were instances wherein we did not export or at least reduce our sugar export to the US upon proper representation with the US Department of Agriculture and Trade Representative.”

“If we convert the US TRQ, which is equivalent to 105,000 MT of sugar for our local industrial consumers, we can satisfy the demand of our local manufacturers and processors and we may no longer import f or their needs,” Zubiri said.

“This is saving another agri industry like sugar, which directly or indirectly will affect 5 million people across 22 provinces in our country. If there’s a shortage it makes no sense to forcibly export the product to countries that don’t need it and then get threatened by our government to liberalize the importation. Its makes absolutely no sense at all,” he added.

The Confederation of Sugar Producers ( Confed) agreed with Zubiri, saying sugar allocations should be kept for domestic use to accommodate and supply local demand.

“This allocation could have provided better prices for our local farmers who are in a quandary as to the marginal farmgate prices of sugar in the past three years,” Confed spokeman Raymond Montinola said.