Rise in meat prices seen

MANILA, Philippines—Brace for higher meat prices, thanks to the limits on meat importation imposed by the Department of Agriculture (DA), an industry group has warned.

In a statement, the Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (Pampi) said a DA administrative order restricting trade in and the distribution of imported meat could lead to higher prices of meat products in the country.

Administrative Order (AO) No. 09 also contains provisions that are practically barriers to trade, Pampi said, adding that the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS), a DA-attached agency, had started implementing the order without consulting the meat industry.

“What is clear is that the rules favor a monopoly of supplies from local sources,” the Pampi statement said. “There is a definite shortage of pork but the NMIS continues to strangle our only other alternative for raw materials—imported pork—by making the importation of pork more difficult, and in fact impossible for new industry entrants.”

The group said the AO had stopped the operations of some meat processors, causing a slowdown of companies that depended for their raw materials on meat from accredited importers.

The administrative order also contains supplemental guidelines to another administrative order, DA-AO No. 26, regarding the accreditation procedure for meat importers that “make the rules highly restrictive of international trade on agricultural products, specifically meat and meat products,” Pampi said.

But Davinio Catbagan of the DA, who also represents Asean in the Standards and Trade Development Facility of the World Trade Organization, said the Philippines was simply improving on regulations using inputs from public consultations.