Importers ask DTI to recompute P12 safeguard duty on cement

Cement importers plan to submit a petition to the Trade Department to reduce the P12-per-bag safeguard duty on cement as recommended by the Tariff Commission, an official of the group said over the weekend.

Philippine Cement Importers Association president Napoleon Co said the group was drafting a letter that would be submitted to the Office of the Trade Secretary within the next two weeks.

“We plan to appeal to Secretary [Ramon Lopez] to recompute the ex-plant price of cement manufacturers and our ex-vessel price for them to realize that our wholesale price is higher than local cement, with port charges and the safeguard measures already embedded,” said Co.

He also appealed to the Trade Department to allow importers a decent measure of profit so they could also survive the competition as importation is their livelihood.

He said that if the safeguard duty of P12 per bag was imposed, the price of imported cement would reach P195 per 40-kilogram bag, higher than the local cement price of P180 to P185 a bag.

Vending operations of importers are limited to areas where there are no cement plants such as Davao, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro, Batangas, Bataan and Tuguegarao.

The importers bring the shipments directly to these areas to avoid the high cost of trucking.

Importers said that once they were eased out of the game, local manufacturers would start to increase the price of local cement.

“The government should keep import windows open so that local cement price will not be abused,” Co said.

Co said that once such things happened, the government should include cement in the list of commodities subjected to suggested retail price, “no matter how difficult it is to implement SRP in cement.”