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The Bureau of Customs has suspended the imposition of the safeguard measure on high-density polyethylene imports
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The safeguard duty was removed effective September 6
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The move is in accordance with Department of Trade and Industry Department Administrative Order No. 25-08, which ordered the suspension of the definitive safeguard measure in order to avert any supply disruption of HDPE products
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has suspended the definitive safeguard measure on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) imports.
The safeguard duty was removed effective September 6, according to BOC Management Information Systems and Technology Group Memo No. 12-2025 dated September 5.
The move is in accordance with Customs Memorandum Circular No. 162-2025, which circularized Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Department Administrative Order (DAO) No. 25-08. The DTI order suspended the definitive safeguard measure in order to avert any supply disruption of HDPE products. The DAO issued last July takes effect upon the issuance of the relevant BOC order.
READ: DTI suspends safeguard measure on HDPE imports
The suspension follows the indefinite commercial shutdown of JG Summit Olefins Corporation (JGSOC)—the sole domestic producer of HDPE products in the country.
In a letter to DTI last March, JGSOC confirmed the shutdown, but noted it expects to continue selling HDPE products from its existing inventory until the third quarter of 2025.
The suspension will be effective for the remaining period of the imposition or until such time that JGSOC resumes its normal operations, whichever comes earlier.
The imposition of the definitive safeguard measure in the form of safeguard duty is already on its third year, having taken effect in 2023.
DAO 22-13, dated September 30, 2022, had ordered the imposition of definite safeguard duty on HDPE pellets and granules from various countries for three years to prevent the imminent serious injury to the local HDPE industry. DAO 22-13 took effect upon the issuance BOC Customs Memorandum Order 02-2023 dated January 11, 2023.
DAO 22-13 is pursuant to the recommendation of the Tariff Commission (TC) after its formal investigation found “there exists an imminent threat of serious injury and significant overall impairment to the position of the domestic HDPE industry in the near future.”
It said this is shown by the significant increase in HDPE importations in 2021, “pointing to a high likelihood that substantially increased imports will continue into the near future.” It said there is also a high likelihood of higher exports of HDPEs to the country in the near future, as top suppliers of the product such as Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia are diverting from their primary export markets and with the Philippines being an important alternative market.
The TC also noted there was “significant deterioration in the overall position of the domestic HDPE market during the period of import surge,” adding that the increase in imports in the first half of 2021 was “recent, sudden, sharp, and significant enough.”
The DTI is mandated by Republic Act No. 8800 (the Safeguard Measures Act) to protect the domestic industry from serious injury caused by a surge in imports.
The review came after JG Summit Petrochemical Corp.—now JGSOC after a merger between the two with the latter as the surviving company—in 2020 alleged that “serious injury to the domestic industry was caused by the increased volume of HDPE.
