Customs falls short of first-half target

The bureau of Customs on Wednesday said its collections in the first six months were 8.6 percent below target due to a strong peso and partly as a result of slower imports following Japan’s twin disasters in March.

The government’s second largest revenue agency had total cash revenue in January to June of P126.1 billion, 13.5 percent higher from a year earlier but below the target of P137.9 billion, the agency said in a statement.

Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez said items such as petroleum products, cereals, plastics, iron and steel, paper products, fertilizers and cement were reclassified as duty-free products or carried reduced tariff from the start of the second half of 2010 due to free-trade deals and steps taken by the government to dampen inflation.

Foregone revenues from free-trade agreements were estimated at P3.8 billion in January to May this year, Alvarez said.

Tariff reduction was implemented pursuant to the Philippines’ commitments to various international, multilateral and bilateral agreements such as the Asean Free Trade Agreement, Asean-China FTA and the Philippine Japan Economic Partnership Agreement.

“Nearly 2,000 products that, until June last year, were considered traditional big revenue sources now come in duty-free or with reduced tariff because of these FTAs as well as due to the government’s social amelioration initiatives,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez said that because of the FTAs, six of the country’s biggest ports missed their respective first semester targets by as much as P6.07 billion.

The port of Cebu is one of the biggest ports of the country, however, the Port of Batangas recorded the biggest deficit since it only collected P23.3 billion instead of its planned P29.3 billion target.

The Manila International Container Port missed its P38.4-billion target by more than P5 billion while the Port of Manila fell short of its P31.6-billion goal by P4.6 billion.

“The earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last March 11 also caused a drastic slowdown on the imports of completely built units from Japan,” he said.

Still, Alvarez cheered the bureau’s performance compared to the same period last year. First semester performance “broke the bureau’s revenues in the first half of 2010 which was hailed at that time as the biggest in its history,” Alvarez said.

He said cash collections averaged at P20.94 billion from January to June, showing a lowest at P18.58 billion in February and the highest at P21.38 billion in March.

“In contrast, never did the bureau’s monthly cash collection during the same period last year exceed P20 billion,” he added.

Despite slow revenues, the government has said it was confident of meeting its target of cutting the budget deficit to 3.2 percent of GDP this year from 3.9 percent in 2010. Inquirer.net