The Philippines to Lower Import Duty on Multiple Products

According to a report on May 26, 2010 from the Philippine the Star, the National Economic and Development Authority of the Philippines revealed that, Philippine President Ms. Arroyo is to sign an executive order to implement zero-tariff policy on petroleum products. According to Mr. Santos, the Government will successively adjust import tariff on multiple products, and then will cut the tariff on steel, rice, coconut oil, sugar and other raw materials for detergent production, in which the import duty on cold and hot rolled steel to be lowered to zero from 7%; that on alkylbenzene and alkyl naphthalene methanol to be lowered to 1% from 3%; that on nylon-6 slices to be lowered to 1 % from 10%. However, the import duty on rice will maintain 40% from 2010 till 2014, which will be lowered to 35% after 2015; the import duty on white sugar will maintain 38% from 2010 till 2011, to be gradually lowered to 5% by 2015. At the same time, it is warned by the Philippine Department of Finance that these tax cuts will result in a loss in revenue of between PESO 3.4 billion and PESO 4.0 billion.