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The Bureau of Customs is now implementing a safeguard measure on various agricultural products, including coffee, hams and sausages, and other prepared and preserved meat
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The imposition of the price-based special safeguard measure took effect on December 18 after BOC’s Management Information System and Technology Group carried out the necessary changes in the agency’s Electronic-to-Mobile System to implement the measure
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is now implementing a special safeguard measure on various agricultural products, including coffee, hams and sausages, and other prepared and preserved meat.
The imposition of the price-based special safeguard measure (SSG) took effect on December 18 after BOC’s Management Information System and Technology Group (MISTG) carried out the necessary changes in the agency’s Electronic-to-Mobile System to implement the measure, according to MISTG Memo No. 15-2024 dated December 16.
The imposition of the SSG, as well as the continuous imposition of the price-based SSG measure on several other eligible agricultural products, was requested by the Department of Agriculture (DA) through DA Department Order (DO) No. 20 series of 2024 signed on October 4.
The DO covers meat of bovine animals, meat and edible offals of fowls; wings, liver and other cuts of fowls of the species Gallus domesticus; hams and cuts thereof; instant coffee; extracts, essences and concentrates of coffee; and coffee preparation.
Imposition of SSG is pursuant to Republic Act (RA) No. 8800 or the Safeguard Measures Act, which provide safeguard measures to protect domestic industries and producers from increased imports which cause or threaten to cause serious injury to those domestic industries and producers.
Under RA 8800, the agriculture secretary shall issue a DO requesting the BOC commissioner, through the Finance secretary, to impose an additional special safeguard duty on an agricultural product, consistent with Philippine international treaty obligations, if its cumulative import volume in a given year exceeds its trigger volume, or –but not concurrently—its actual cost, insurance, and freight (CIF) import price is less than its trigger price.
Trigger price is the price benchmark for applying the special safeguard measure.
DO No. 20 said the price-based SSG should be imposed on a shipment-to-shipment basis, depending on the difference between the actual CIF price at the time of lodgment of import documents and the corresponding trigger price.
DO No. 20 also states that additional duty should be collected for imports of the covered agricultural products if their CIF import prices breach their respective trigger prices, pursuant to Section 24 of RA 8800.
DO No. 20 took effect immediately and will remain in force until revoked in writing.
