The three-man Tariff Commission is set to begin this Friday, September 15, a public hearing on the proposal to temporarily reduce the tariff rate on rice imports to 10 percent from 35 percent.
The current tariff structure has been blamed the market’s failure to resolve the unmet demand for the rice staple whose price President Marcos Jr. has tried to address via price caps.
According to the Tariff Commission, the public hearing will be conducted via videoconference from 9:00 in the morning of Friday up to 12:00 noon under which anyone may register via http://tariffcommission.gov.ph provided they register before the business hours close Thursday, September 14, 2023.
Participants are encouraged to present position papers for or against the proposed tariff cut and submit them before the close of business hours also the day before the public hearing.
The public hearing had been set off by events that experts and policymakers alike said have been long-standing.
But the most urgent of those events was the unexpected upturn of inflation in August averaging 5.3 percent when all forecasts pointed to sustained easing in the rate at which services and goods change. Inflation trended south for six months in a series until the Philippine Statistics Authority price survey made it clear that food inflation had to be put under control, the price caps on the staple notwithstanding.
Experts at the Foundation for Economic Freedom have claimed that an immediate tariff cut will prove “effective in solving the supply-demand gap and arrest the increasing food price inflation.”
Malacanang tried to address the widening gap, apparently without first consulting the economic managers under the leadership of Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno who has since explained that a well thought out policy response can effectively address the ruckus in retail markets across the country.
