House probe set on tax-free imports, perks for Thai firm

A lawmaker asked a House committee to investigate the alleged grant of a seven-year tax holiday, tax incentives for importation and other perks to a foreign company that plans to put up hog and poultry farms that local hog industry leaders said would be the last nail on the coffin of the local hog trade.

In a statement quoting his Nov. 28 privileged speech, Rep. Agapito Guanlao, of the party-list group Butil, said the Board of Investments (BOI) granted the perks to Thai company Charoen Pokphand (CP) despite protests from local hog growers.

Among the perks that were granted to the firm, according to Guanlao, is a 30-percent tax incentive to allow CP to import corn and raw feed materials.

“It is lamentable that the BOI appears to have put aside the interest of the local industry, which is just beginning to recover from losses amounting to P28.5 billion because of technical smuggling in the past three years,” said Guanlao in his speech.

“Now, the BOI is in a hurry to support a foreign competitor in various areas in Central Luzon,” Guanlao said.

“It is time for Congress to start a deep probe into this at the soonest possible time,” the lawmaker added.

He said the investigation should focus on four issues: The alleged preferential treatment given by government to CP, the apparent disregard of a statement made by Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala that CP’s entry “will definitely have an adverse impact on the backyard (hog) industry,” the apparent absence of consultation with the agriculture department and the fact that CP is 100 percent foreign-owned.

“It makes my blood boil that while the Department of Agriculture has been trying to revive the barely recuperating local hog and poultry industries, the BOI appears to be bent on pushing them down,” he said.

The House committees on agriculture and food security will summon officials of the Department of Trade and Industry and BOI to a joint congressional hearing on Tuesday next week.

Hog and poultry industry leaders welcomed the response of Congress to their call to recall the BOI approval the P2.32-billion integrated production project of CP.

Rosendo So, director of the Swine Development Council, said he would attend the inquiry called by the House special committees on food security and on food and agriculture on Dec. 4 to discuss the CP project.

So said the CP project would establish and operate hog stock farms in Tarlac and Pangasinan, as well as six broiler farms in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija. These projects, he said, will start operations in February 2013.

So, also chair of the party-list group Abono, said aside from hog and poultry raisers, related industries like the cultivation of corn and sugarcane, both ingredients of animal feed, would be affected.

Aside from the seven-year tax holiday, the Thai company would also enjoy tariff free importation of parent hogs, machines, corn and other feed ingredients, thus gravely affecting the corn and sugar cane farmers, he said. With a report by Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon