[ Malaya.com.ph ] April 9, 2010
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) may allow duty-free importation of steel products to lower the cost of the commodity in the wake of rising iron ore prices.
These and other alternatives are being looked at by the DTI as interventions to cushion the impact of high raw material costs on the prices of construction materials.
A DTI official said the Philippines could also turn to "friendly" sources of steel like Japan and China where the country currently enjoys preferential trading arrangements.
The Philippines is now importing slabs, ingots and billets from all over but sources inputs for cars and sophisticated appliances from Japan. Regular steel products are sourced from China.
The official said there are fears of slowdown in importation because of high prices but at this point, importations should continue to sustain a booming construction sector.
The official also proposes more efficiency on finished products manufacturing to make up for the higher costs of inputs.
"A logical move is to bring (tariff) to zero. With this new development - it is something (we) have to reckon with, the official said.
The DTI explained that in this situation, imposing safeguard measures will not work because this would result in even higher prices of steel products. Safeguards are additional duty on top of the regular tariff meant to protect against surge in imports.
The technical level inter-agency committee on tariff related matters will meet next week to deliberate on the measures. - Irma Isip
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