The British Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines or BCCP remains confident that British meat importers will always be the Philippines' partners for affordable meat to counter the frozen meat dumping which is hurting the local industry.

In an interview, the chamber's president Chris Nelson said the government is forced to resort to meat importation because of the shortage in supply, as some provinces remains battered by the African swine fever.

"Imports help both the pricing and supply for the country because the government sees the need in doing it. These imports make price and supply stable, and we are actually helping food security and inflation in the country," Nelson said.

He said importers from the United Kingdom also suffer headwinds such as supply chain problems, and high tariffs.

Meat supply a challenge

The American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, strongly urge the Marcos administration to extend Executive Order 171 to manage inflation concerns.

Nelson said the National Economic and Development Authority seems to agree with the proposal, as the country also benefits from it.

"Meat supply is a challenge due to ASF, making the inflation surge further. And the importation from other countries, such as the UK, has assisted in bringing down those prices and obviously securing the supply. And I think the economic team, particularly NEDA, has indicated that they are in favor of extending. That will help the supply and the inflation," Nelson explained.

EO 171 — issued last May 2022 in response to growing inflation concerns — effectively reduced tariff rates on pork, corn, rice and coal for the remainder of 2022 at a time when inflation rates were only beginning to rise above the upper band of the official government inflation target.

"Since then, we have seen inflation breach the 2-4 percent target and now settling at 7.7 percent last October," according to the joint statement of foreign business chambers.

More importers coming in

Meanwhile, the BCCP has recently partnered with the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board for another Meat Trade Mission at One World Butchers, Makati City last 2 December 2022.