The U.S. pork industry received good news from a major trading partner as the Philippines will extend reduced tariff rates on imported pork for another year. The rate cuts, which were first implemented in 2021, were set to expire Dec. 31, but will now remain in place through the end of 2024. U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) President and CEO Dan Halstrom said that duty rates are now 15% for in-quota imports, down from the normal rate of 30%, and 25% for out-of-quota imports, which is down from the normal 40%.
“The reduced pork tariffs for inbound cargo from the U.S. have been in place since mid-2021,” Halstrom said. “These were originally implemented to stabilize the pork supplies as the Philippines was recovering from African swine fever. And these rate cuts were due to expire at the end of this month but have now been extended. And just for some reference, the in-quota duty rate normally is at 30%, and with reduced rates they’ll be 15. And the out-of-duty quota rate, normally 40%, will be reduced to 25%. So, while this is good news, still, even at these lower rates, it’s still a relatively high duty.”
Halstrom said that making pork more consistently accessible and affordable can improve food security and bolster consumption, and this can actually benefit domestic pork producers.
“I think the key here is to make pork protein raw material more available to the average consumer in the sense of improving food security and bolstering consumption,” Halstrom said. “And that’s the ultimate goal in many of these markets is to create a situation where per capita consumption increases over time, which then benefits not only imports, but the domestic pork industry as well in the Philippines, South Korea and Colombia are good examples of countries that started out with very high duties for inbound pork. Now, you know, they’re much lower or duty free, and we’re seeing a situation there where industry is expanding, per capita consumption has grown over time. And that has benefited the domestic pork in both South Korea and Colombia. At the same time, imports have been booming. So that’s the ideal situation – if you can grow the pie in whole, it benefits all parties.”
For more information, visit usmef.org.
