Banana exporters in Philippines seek President Marcos' intervention to exempt them from tariffs that make the value of the country's prized yellow fruit uncompetitive to other banana-producing countries.
The Philippine Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) said certain fines and fees imposed by Customs “burden” exporters, who are forced to pay additional costs amid stiff competition from other foreign banana producers and exporters. PBGEA Executive Director Stephen Antig, for example, noted that the 5,000 peseta fine imposed by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) for error or correction of the import sanction had become a “problem” for banana exporters. The BOC, under its mandate under Republic Act 10863 or the Customs and Tariff Modernization Act, imposes a fee of 5,000 pesos for clerical errors in a commodity declaration.
The BOC defines an administrative error under its Customs Administration Regulation 01-2020 as unintentional errors, whether mechanical or electronic, made unintentionally by a declarant.( E.g. . necessary to avoid such errors. Examples of typographical errors are misspellings or incorrect data entry when composing, copying or transposing a document, Destination port information, package number, shipment quantity and more.
Antig explained that correcting information required in an export declaration (ED) is difficult for banana exporters to avoid because they can only determine certain information, such as the final number of boxes to be shipped, several hours before the boat’s departure .
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“This would mean you have to re-lodge and correct the entries of the originally filed Export Declaration [ED]. For every error/correction of entry, the exporter is slapped with P5,000. More or less, there are usually 3-5 entries/data to be corrected costing the exporter an additional P15,000 to P25,000 per re-lodgement,” Antig added.
“This would mean you have to re-lodge and correct the entries of the originally filed Export Declaration [ED]. For every error/correction of entry, the exporter is slapped with P5,000. More or less, there are usually 3-5 entries/data to be corrected costing the exporter an additional P15,000 to P25,000 per re-lodgement,” Antig added.
Antig noted that before, banana exporters were required to file an ED 48 hours prior to the departure of a vessel. The timeline has been reduced by BOC to two hours prior to the departure of the vessel after a series of appeals made by banana exporters, he added.
“But, this is still an additional cost to the exporter. Definitely, this is an additional burden to exporters as they absorb this additional cost,” he said.
“Banana companies are saddled with the re-lodgement fees charged by the BOC, especially if one ED is revised several times,” he added.
As the Philippines continues to lose market share in Asian banana exports, PBGEA has urged the government to suspend corrective tariffs imposed by the BOC to keep the export price of the country’s bananas competitive with foreign countries. PBGEA said the government, particularly Marcos, should review the 2006 series of Executive Orders (EO) 554 issued by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. EO 554 directed relevant government agencies to abolish fees and charges on export-related permits and permits to improve the country’s competitiveness. export products. Antig argued that moving fees charged by the BOC should be eliminated given the provisions of EO 554.
“Note, EO 554 series of 2006 was not actually implemented. We need something like this in these difficult times,” he said.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported that the Philippines’ share of Asian banana exports continued to decline, falling from 90% to just 60% last year as competition from neighboring producer countries increased. The Philippines‘ standing as Asia’s leading banana exporter is now being shaken by ongoing production problems, aggravated by stiff competition from growing banana suppliers in the region.
