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THE
different bakery associations in the country announced
that they will be implementing price hikes starting this
month due to the series of increases in the cost of
flour in the country since July.
With
this, the local bakers are asking the government to
start importing cheaper flour through the Philippine
International Trading Corp. (PITC), or at least lower
than the 5-percent to 7-percent tariff imposed on flour.
The
Philippine Federation of Bakers Association Inc. (PFBAI),
Filipino-Chinese Bakers Association Inc. (FCBAI) and the
Philippine Baking Industry Group (PhilBaking) jointly
announced in a press conference Tuesday that their
members could no longer absorb the increases in the
price of flour in the country since July.
“We are
no longer capable of tightening our belts any further,
lest we need to close down our bakeries. pan de sal,
which is now averaging P2 per piece at about 32 grams
each is no longer viable with the new flour prices,”
PFBAI president Lucito Chavez said.
Simplicio
Umali Jr., president of PhilBaking said, the price of
flour has gone up by 45 percent from P580 per
25-kilogram bag in July to P840 this month.
This is
a big blow to the bakers, he said, since flour
represents about 55 percent to 65 percent of their
production cost.
Pan de
sal prices, the groups said, will increase to about
P2.50 per piece, while loaf bread will be selling at P52
per 600 grams by mid-December.
Umali
said they have already asked the Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI) to help them control the increase in
flour costs for the benefit of the consumers.
He said
the DTI should talk to local flour millers not to price
their products too far from the P650-per- bag selling
price of the importers of low-grade China flour.
Umali
said they want to buy more imported flour but the supply
is tight.
With
this, the bakers are asking the state’s PITC to get into
the picture and start importing on its own at zero duty.
Umali
said they received reports that the local millers are
planning to increase their prices anew by 10 percent in
January.
Short
of saying that there is a cartel working in the country,
Umali said they could not understand why the flour
prices of the domestic millers are almost identical,
with just about P5 separating their prices per bag.
Also,
comparatively, Umali said local flour prices tend to be
15- percent to 20-percent higher than the prevailing
prices in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and
Singapore.
The
main reason for the spiraling prices of flour, Umali
said, is the low supply of wheat—the raw material for
the production of flour—in the global market.
He said
the effect is also being felt by makers of other
flour-based products such as noodles, cakes, pastries
and snack goods.
“Flour
prices could have been higher if had it not been for the
positive effect of our improving peso-dollar exchange
rate,” he said. |
