January 6, 2012
Philippine feed millers to import zero-duty Australian wheat in Q1
Feed millers in the Philippines said they are poised to bring in a total of 491,000 tonnes of feed wheat at zero duty from Australia in the first quarter of the year.
A total of 138,000 tonnes of the grain will arrive in the Philippines while the bulk of the contracted volume for the first quarter is expected to come next month, totalling the shipments to 195,000 tonnes which will be brought into various local ports.
In March, feed millers will bring in a total of 158,000 tonnes of feed wheat.
An industry executive disclosed that the volume of feed wheat was contracted at an average of US$247 per tonne and was all purchased from Australia.
Feed millers said Australian feed wheat was cheaper since they did not pay any duty for it as per the Australia-New Zealand-Asean Free Trade Agreement (ANZFTA).
Meanwhile, feed millers disclosed that they also bought a total of 56,000 tonnes of yellow corn which will arrive in the Philippines in February. A total of 36,000 tonnes will be delivered this month while the rest will be shipped next month.
An industry executive said the yellow corn was bought at an average of US$327 per tonne. Corn bought from Thailand was slapped a duty of 5 percent as it was imported under the Asean Free Trade Area-Common Effective Preferential Tariff (Afta-CEPT) scheme.
The arrival of the imported feed wheat and yellow corn is expected to ease the spike in the price of locally produced corn. Feed millers said locally produced corn is now priced at PHP19 (US$0.43) per kilogram, from PHP13 (US$0.29) per kilo just a few months ago.
Feed millers usually buy feed wheat from abroad whenever there is a shortage of yellow corn in the local market and prices are high.
In 2010, feed wheat imports totalled 1.07 million tonnes, 11.29 percent higher than the 962,446 tonnes they imported in 2010, according to industry data.
For the rest of 2012, feed millers said they could not yet give a projection on how much feed wheat they will import.