The National Economic and Development Authority said Friday quantitative restrictions on rice imports should end to lower the price of the commodity.
Economic Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said in a forum the extended quantitative restriction on rice should end by 2017 and that transition to "tariffication” should start by then.
The World Trade Organization Committee on Trade in Goods recently approved the petition of the Philippines for protective measures to keep the high duties on imported rice under the minimum access volume at 40 percent and the higher MAV will at 50 percent.
"We have until 2017 to continue that regime and by the end of it, we are expected to be tarrified. What it means [is] our rice market will become more predictable and transparent, hence we should take advantage of that to prepare that sector,” Balisacan said.
The Philippine Institute for Development Studies defines tariffication as the conversion of all tariff and non-tariff barriers into custom duties. //
