Thursday, April 17, 2008 Processed meat prices to rise By Debra Magallon-Estero Sun.Star Correspondent
A 20-percent increase in the prices of all processed meat products will take effect in Central Visayas in the next 15 days.
Canned goods prices will also increase by 15 percent.
These were revealed by Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. (Pampi) executive director Francisco Buencamino yesterday during the opening day of the World Food Expo 2008 (Wofex) at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC).
Buencamino said the increase is caused by the rise in the prices of meat products and packaging materials in the country.
The increase will affect processed meat products like hotdogs, sausage, corned beef and ham, among others.
But Buencamino said he does not expect the price increase to be reflected right away in the prices of processed meat in the retail market as Pampi is still disseminating the information about the price hike among distributors yet.
Two weeks
“So there should be no price increase in the retail market within the next two weeks,” he said.
Pampi has 33 member-companies, six of which are based in Cebu.
Buencamino said some fastfood chains in the country have already increased prices last week.
However, he confirmed that the price increase will not pave the way for the decline of the processors product quality.
Buencamino said that right now, pork in the retail market is already pegged at P200 per kilo.
He said the increase in the prices of processed meat products is partly caused by the rise in the cost of tin cans. The tin can manufacturers in the country have increased their rates by 30 percent.
He said the cost of cans for canned goods comprise 47 percent to 50 percent of the end-product price, which is why the price of canned goods will also go up.
He said there is also a shortage in the supply of manufacturing-grade meat in the country, leaving meat processors no other option but to import meat from other countries.
Quota
Although Pampi is willing to go into a dialogue with hog raisers to address the shortage, another industry insider also said that certain government policies are “not friendly” to the meat processor industry.
Meat processors find the minimum access volume (MAV) policy, which is imposed in all member-countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO), as “not supportive,” of the P90-billion meat processing industry.
The MAV policy imposes a quota on the volume of meat a meat processor can import to protect local meat producers. If the meat processor imports beyond its quota, an additional tariff is imposed by the government.
The industry insider said the tariff rate within the MAV quota is 30 percent of the value of the imported meat. But this tariff rate is increased to 40 percent when the importation breaks the quota.
The industry insider also said that the MAV policy is used by the government to protect the hog raisers even when supply is not sufficient.
“We have to resort to importation since supply is low,” he said. He also mentioned that additional tariff imposed when the MAV quota is breached is passed on to consumers.
According to a report in the Business Mirror, the government has imposed a MAV quota of 53,000 metric tons of pork products for this year.
Buencamino, for his part, said Pampi sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap three weeks ago, requesting the Department of Agriculture (DA) to review the MAV policy. He said Pampi has yet to receive feedback from Yap’s office.
The DA is the agency tasked to oversee the implementation of the MAV policy on imported agricultural and meat products.
