THE Philippines again obtained the same sugar quota from the United States under a preferential trade scheme for fiscal year 2021, which will kick off in October.
The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) recently announced the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) allocations for the next fiscal year.
The Philippines was given a sugar quota of 142,160 metric tons raw value (MTRV), or 136,201 MT commercial weight, for fiscal year 2021, which starts this October and ends on September 30, 2021.
“These allocations are based on each country’s historical shipments to the United States,” the USTR said in a news statement issued on July 22.
This is the fourth consecutive fiscal year that the US allocated a sugar quota to the Philippines at 142,160 MTRV.
Countries authorized by the US to export sugar under the TRQ scheme may do so at lower duties.
The Philippines was given the third-largest allocation of the total 1.117 million MTRV in-quota quantity of the TRQ, next to the Dominican Republic and Brazil, which received 185,335 MTRV and 152,691 MTRV, respectively.
Latest Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) data showed that the Philippines, as of July 19, has shipped 67,222 MT commercial weight equivalent of sugar to the US in the current fiscal year.
Earlier, the Philippine Sugar Millers Association (PSMA) said the country may ship a total of 100,000 MT this current fiscal year. PSMA noted that the volume of exports to the US is “shorter” than the country’s 136,201 MTCW quota but traders are now looking for a way to find a vessel that will ship at least 20,000 MT.
The SRA has issued Sugar Order 5 last July 29 that ordered the verification of outstanding “A” sugar quedans, or sugar that are allocated for export to the US market.
“There is a need for the SRA to make an accounting of all “A” US Export Market Sugar issued for CY 2019-2020 and previous crop years to determine the total available volume of all outstanding A sugar quedans,” the SRA said.
The SRA has set the deadline for the filing of the application of verification of A sugar quedan-permits on September 7.
After a two-year slump, the country’s sugar production in the current crop year 2019-2020 is poised for recovery, latest data from the SRA showed.
Preliminary SRA data as of July 7 has reached 2.145 million metric tons, 3.54 percent over the 2.072 MMT recorded in the same period of last year.
The volume was equivalent to 42.913 million 50-kilogram bags of raw sugar, compared to the 41.447 million LKg produced last year, SRA data showed.
This is now the highest sugar output in three crop years since the record-high 2.5 MMT was recorded in calendar year 2016-2017.
The current crop year began on September 1, 2019, and will end on August 31.