A LOCAL cement manufacturer said the move of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to limit the amount of imported sugar should be applied to other local industries also facing serious threats from unabated imports.
“The move of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. to shoot down an attempt to allow sugar import should serve as a message to other industry sectors about the administration’s aversion toward ‘unusually high volume’ of importation,” Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (CeMAP) said in a statement on Tuesday.
A local industry leader said on Sunday that the step encouraged the agriculture and other struggling domestic producers amid the unabated influx of foreign products to the country.
Cirilo Pestano, Executive Director of the Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines, said in a statement, “Like our peers in the sugar sector, we welcome the President’s action against the flood of imported products.”
Added Pestano, “We hope that the Marcos administration would extend this policy to other local industries that are facing equal serious threats from the influx of imports.”
The President, he stressed, had shown wisdom in taking the position to strike a balance between protecting consumers against rising prices of basic commodities and ensuring the viability of local industries.
CeMap had asked the Tariff Commission to impose anti-dumping duties against Type 1 and Type 1P cement imports from Vietnam, and to extend the safeguard measures slapped on cement imports in 2019 but which will expire in October.
Supported by non-member local manufacturers, CeMAP told the Tariff Commission that despite the safeguard measures, the volume of imports increased.
In June, Republic Cement, another local cement firm, also decried the unabated influx of imports.
Republic Cement’s Vice President for Strategy and Business Development Reinier Dizon noted that local manufacturers do not enjoy the advantages of imports, for instance, from Indonesia which has abundant coal resources; or from Vietnam where their electricity cost is subsidized—information that is based on the Philippines’s cement industry roadmap by LEK Consulting.
According to CeMAP, Dizon told the Tariff Commission during the public hearings that despite constant innovation and operational improvements they made, imports coming at dumped prices caused sustained injury to his company.
Vice President for Sustainability Zoe Sibala of Holcim Philippines Inc.—also among the local cement firms affected by the influx of cement imports—disclosed at a public hearing in June that the volume of imported cement continues to increase and at lower prices at the retail level notwithstanding increases in the prices of fuel and energy.
According to CeMAP, the share of imports to domestic production in terms of volume increased steadily from zero in 2013 to 5.3 million metric tons in 2019, increasing further to 6.88 MMT in 2021.
Local cement manufacturers who were petitioners at the public hearings before the Tariff Commission noted that imports volume grew even if local demand for cement never outpaced domestic supply despite work stoppage caused by the pandemic.
The Tariff Commission has concluded its hearings on CeMAP’s twin petitions.
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