|
FINALLY,
good news amid rising prices of commodities.
Domestic
flour millers announced Monday they would not be raising
their prices at least up to the end of the month, which
augurs well for the local bakeries and bread-buying
public.
Ric
Pinca, executive director of the Philippine Association
of Flour Millers (Pafmil), said contrary to the fears of
the different bakeries’ associations in the country,
they have no intention of increasing the price of wheat
flour.
However,
Pinca said this assurance is only good for the rest of
the month.
“That’s
all we can assure them [consumers] now. We don’t know
what will happen in the world market,” Pinca told the
BusinessMirror.
He said
that since wheat is traded globally, several aspects,
like the supply-and-demand situation and weather
conditions in wheat-producing countries, would easily
affect the prices of wheat flour locally.
For
example, Pinca cited the widespread flooding in Iowa,
one of the biggest producers of wheat in the US.
He said
they are hoping the situation there will not get worse,
as this will certainly have an impact on world wheat
prices.
The
Philippines, he said, sources 90 percent of its wheat
requirements from the US.
In the
meantime, however, Pinca said the prices of flour that
local millers are producing would remain at a range of
P910 to P980 per 25-kg bag retail.
“The
food-manufacturing sector, including the wheat flour
milling industry, has a standing agreement with the
Department of Trade and Industry [DTI] where food
manufacturers notify the DTI of any intended price
increases about a week or two before such planned price
increases are to take place. No such notice had been
submitted to the DTI to date,” Pinca said.
In fact,
Pinca said wheat-flour prices have been at present
levels since March.
“We can
live with those prices and withstand whatever
difficulties we are having now,” he said.
Earlier,
three bakery groups appealed to the flour millers not to
increase their prices this season, especially with the
cost of wheat expected to drop by around $10 per bushel
this September.
Pinca
said the wheat flour milling industry shares with the
local bakery groups a common desire for lower wheat
flour prices “so that together we can help maintain
bread prices at levels affordable to most of our
countrymen.”
This, he
said, is the reason why the flour-milling industry
launched the low-cost bread project Tinapay ng Bayan in
coordination with the DTI and the Department of
Agriculture (DA).
Under
the Tinapay ng Bayan program, loaf bread of 550 grams is
sold at P37 each while a pack of seven pieces of pan de
sal of 25 grams each is sold at P12 a pack or P1.74
apiece.
Tinapay
ng Bayan bread is sold at Tindahan Natin and Bagsakan
Centers of the DA and Rolling Stores of the National
Food Authority (NFA) in depressed and other low-income
communities in Metro Manila.
These
products are sold at higher prices in bakeries and
supermarkets where a loaf of bread of the same weight
costs P44 to P54 while pan de sal usually retails at
P2.50 to P3 apiece.
Pinca
said wheat grain prices in the world market have been
fluctuating on a daily basis, affected by almost daily
record-high prices of oil. The US is also using grains,
such as corn and soybeans, as alternate sources of fuel,
and this caused grain prices to rise to almost double
their 2007 prices. |
