The Philippine Plastics Industry Association (PPIA) vehemently opposes the imposition of safeguard duties on imported plastic raw materials saying this will lead to price increases on local commodities — from food, beverage, cosmetics, personal and home care to medicines.
PPIA’s stand comes after Secretary Ramon Lopez in separate orders said the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) found surge in imports of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and low linear density PE (LLDPE) caused an injury to the local industry.
In his Sept 22, 2021 orders, Lopez did not impose provisional safeguard duties but instead forwarded the preliminar findings of the DTI to the Tariff Commission for the conduct of a formal investigation.
PPIA president Danny Ngo in a statement said about 417 plastic downstream enterprises catering to more than 23,000 workers will be severely affected should the government decide to slap additional duties. Ngo said more than 23,000 consumer products manufacturers, with an aggregate 343,262 workers and P1.79 trillion contribution to national output, and the 110 million Filipino consumers will be affected by this additional cost.
Ngo said the imposition of an additional duty on HDPE and LLDPE would make local industries very uncompetitive against the huge influx of cheaper foreign goods.
“Worst, it may consequently shut down operations because 95 percent of the companies affected are SMEs (small and medium enterprises) that have no capacity to absorb such unnecessary costs,” he said. – Irma Isip
